JEROME  D.  TRAVERS 


THE  NEW  GOLF 


BY 

P.  A.  VAILE 

Author  of  "Modern  Golf,"  "The  Soul 
of  Golf,"  etc. 


CONTAINING  FORTY  ILLUSTRATIONS 
FROM  PHOTOGRAPHS 


NEW  YORK 

E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 
1916 


Copyright,  1916 
BY  E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 


\ 


/.  :•:;:• -I,:-. 


PEEFACE 

THERE  are  always  many  people  who  say  that 
golf  cannot  be  learned  from  a  book.  Neither  can 
arithmetic,  unless  one  assiduously  practises  the 
actual  work.  Yet  no  intelligent  person  would  try 
to  argue  that  the  arithmetic  book  is  superfluous. 
The  fact  is  that  the  American  has  in  the  past 
played  most  games  by  imitating  other  people.  It 
is  a  fine  way  to  learn,  but  it  is  not  always  the 
quickest,  and  it  certainly  is  not  the  most  scien- 
tific or  intellectual. 

Golf  in  America  is  making  amazing  progress. 
Many  of  the  greatest  intellects  of  the  nation  get 
their  recreation  on  the  links.  The  youth  of  the 
country  is  playing  the  game  in  a  manner  that  is  not 
equalled  by  the  youth  of  any  other  nation,  either 
as  regards  quantity,  quality  or  sex.  The  women 
of  America  are  playing  it.  It  is  making  playmates 
of  parents  and  children,  husbands  and  wives  who 
otherwise  would  not  be  so  close  to  one  another. 
It  is  a  mighty  industry,  a  great  factor  in  business 
and  social  life,  and  every  day  it  is  becoming  more 
so.  *Unless  one  can  play,  or  at  least  talk  intelli- 


355310 


PREFACE 

gently  about,  golf,  one  has  to  miss  about  three 
quarters  of  the  conversation  in  any  country  club — 
and  many  other  places — in  America. 

This  may  seem  a  poor  way  to  look  at  a  great 
game.  It  really  is  not  so.  There  is  more  golf  in 
the  atmosphere  than  politics  or  religion.  Nobody 
cares  to  be  quite  ignorant  of  the  subject  that  is 
engrossing  the  attention  of  one 's  friends  and  rela- 
tions. It  is  therefore  becoming  increasingly  im- 
portant for  every  one  to  know  at  least  enough 
about  golf  to  avoid  being  bored  to  distraction. 

This  is  a  very  insidious  method  of  adding  to  the 
rank  of  the  golfers.  It  is  right  that  one  should 
get  this  knowledge — this  theoretical  knowledge — 
first.  It  is  so  much  pleasanter  for  him — and  the 
other  people — when  he  sets  out  to  put  it  into  prac- 
tise, as  he  undoubtedly  will. 

In  arriving  at  the  new  golf  it  was  of  course  nec- 
essary to  know  "Ye  olde  golfe."  In  comparing 
the  new  thought  and  the  intellectual  advance  in  the 
game  with  what  has  gone  before  it  has  been  im- 
possible to  avoid  reference  to  the  works  of  the 
great  masters  of  golf,  men  whom  every  good 
golfer  honors  for  their  skill  in  the  execution  of 
the  game  and  for  the  admirable  manner  in 
which  they  all  so  worthily  maintain  their  posi- 
tion in  it  in  every  way.  All  advance  in  any 
science  is  built  upon  the  achievement  or  error  of 


PREFACE 

the  men  who  went  before,  and  even  the  er- 
rors of  the  earnest  student  are  frequently  good 
for  the  man  who  comes  after.  I  have  been  led  to 
the  truth  by  a  famous  man's  error,  the  same  error 
as  I  myself  had  made  before  him,  but  I  did  not  see 
it  until  he  made  it.  Then  it  was  clear  to  me. 

So,  it  has  been  necessary  for  me  to  use  the  work 
of  the  famous  men,  who  have  gone  before  me  in  the 
history  of  golf,  in  building  up  The  New  Golf  and 
the  secure  foundation  for  The  New  Thought  in 
golf,  which  is  of  infinitely  greater  importance. 
Knowing  golf  thoroughly  and  thinking  it  keenly 
cannot  make  the  game  less  interesting  or  beneficial, 
and  that  I  am  sure  will  be  proved  by  a  careful 
study  of  The  New  Golf. 

I  must  impress  on  my  readers  the  fact  that  in 
nearly  every  case  where  a  golf  book  has  been  pro- 
duced in  England  under  the  name  of  a  famous  pro- 
fessional it  has  been  written  by  some  golf  journal- 
ist who  is  not  himself  entitled  to  speak  with  au- 
thority. In  this  manner  much  that  is  not  even 
"olde  goffe"  has  become  associated  with  the 
names  of  the  famous  players, — much,  indeed,  to 
which  they  will  not  now  subscribe.  The  trouble 
is,  however,  that  it  is  still  circulating  with  all  the 
authority  of  their  great  names  and  will  so  con- 
tinue to  circulate  unless  The  New  Thought  in  golf 
damages  it  severely — as  I  think  it  will. 


PREFACE 

Americans  really  are  keen  and  analytical  about 
their  game.  They  desire  always  the  shortest  road 
to  proficiency.  I  believe  that  in  The  New  Golf  I 
am  showing  the  American  golfer  that  road.  If 
this  work  is  not  a  primer  to  the  beginner  and  a 
valuable  friend  to  the  champion,  and  this  indeed  is 
"a  far  cry  both  ways,"  it  will  have  failed  of  the 
purpose  which  inspired  its  production. 

P.  A.  V. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    THE  RIGHT  WAY  TO  LEARN  GOLF 1 

II    GRIPPING  AND  SOLING  THE  CLUB 6 

III  PREVALENT  MISCONCEPTIONS  ABOUT  THE   GOLF 

STROKE 14 

IV  PUTTING 32 

V    THE  MASHIE 67 

VI    THE  IRON 83 

VII    THE  CLEEK 91 

VIII    DRIVING 97 

IX    THE  NIBLICK 142 

X    THE  MASTER  STROKE 147 

XI    THE  SLICE 164 

XII    THE  PULL 176 

XIII  THE  EYES 191 

XIV  THE  SHORT  SWING 198 

XV    THE  POWER  OF  THE  LEFT 204 

XVI    THE  GOLF  CLUB 223 

XVII    THE  GOLF  BALL   \ 232 

XVIII    THE  FLIGHT  OF  THE  GOLF  BALL       ....  258 
AFTERWORD  .  283 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTEATIONS 

PLATE  FACING  PAGE 

1  Jerome  D.  Travers.    Finish  of  Drive      Frontispiece 

2  The  Vardon  Overlapping  Grip 4 

3  The  Vaile  Overlapping  Grip 16 

4  Front  and  Rear  Views  of  Vaile  Grip 28 

5  Salient  Points  in  Putting 40 

6  Salient  Points  in  Putting 52 

7  Errors  in  Putting 64 

8  Comparison  of  Putters 76 

9  Jerome  D.   Travers  Putting,     (a)    Stance  and  Ad- 

dress,    (b)    Finish 88 

10  Jerome  D.  Travers.     (a)   A   Short  Approach,     (b) 

Stance  and  Address  with  Mashie  or  Jigger  .     .     .  100 

11  Edward  Ray  Playing  a  Chip  Shot 112 

12  Edward  Ray  Playing  an  Approach 124 

13  Jerome  D.  Travers.     (a)  Top  of  Swing  with  Mashie. 

(b)  Stance  and  Address  with  Cleek 136 

14  Jerome  D.   Travers.     Top  of  Swing  and  Finish  in 

Iron  Play 148 

15  Jerome  D.  Travers  Bunkered 160 

16  James  Braid  Playing  out  of  a  Bunker 172 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  FACING  PAGE 

17  Jerome  D.  Travers.    Driving,  Stance  and  Address, 

and  Top  of  the  Swing 184 

18  Jerome  D.  Travers.    Top  of  the  Drive      .     .     .     .196 

19  Francis  Ouimet.    Top  of  Drive 208 

20  Robert  A.  Gardner.    Finish  of  Drive 220 

21  Charles  Evans,  Jr.    Finish  of  Drive 232 

22  Harry  Vardon.    Finish  of  Drive 244 

23  Francis  Ouimet.    Finish  of  Drive 256 

24  Harry  Vardon.    Finish  of  Drive 268 


THE  NEW  GOLF 


THE  NEW  GOLF 

CHAPTEE  I 

THE   BIGHT   WAY   TO   LEAKN   GOLF 

IF  one  employs  a  professional  to  teach  one  golf 
the  first  thing  he  does  is  to  hand  one  a  driver. 
Then  he  tells  one  a  good  deal  about  the  mystery 
and  difficulty  of  golf  and  proceeds  to  try  to  teach 
one  the  drive,  the  most  difficult  stroke  in  golf, 
first. 

I  am  calling  the  drive  the  most  difficult  stroke 
in,  golf.  It  is  not  so  to  everybody,  but  it  is  suffi- 
ciently so  to  give  point  to  my  illustration,  for  in 
the  drive  there  is  probably  at  least  as  much  op- 
portunity for  error  as  there  is  in  any  stroke  in 
golf. 

I  maintain  that  in  a  game  which  makes  such  a 
full  and  insistent  demand  for  accuracy  as  does 
golf,  the  only  correct  method  of  instruction  is  to 
take  the  beginner  by  natural  gradation  from  the 
easiest  stroke  to  the  most  difficult.  In  all  good 

tuition,  in  sport  or  science,  this  is  the  invariable 

i 


2  THE  NEW  GOLF 

rule.  For  some  inscrutable  reason  it  is  openly 
and  ruthlessly  violated  and  contemned  by  all  pro- 
fessional golfers.  The  result  is,  not  unnaturally, 
that  an  amazing  number  of  people  who  pay  much 
money  to  learn  golf  are  not  learning  it. 

It  would  not  be  so  bad  if  it  stopped  at  this. 
Unfortunately  it  does  not.  Many  of  these  poor 
people  start  golf  late  in  life.  This  method,  or 
lack  of  method,  in  teaching  makes  of  many  of  them 
merely  golf -cowards.  One  has  heard  of  men  and 
boys  who  are  "gun-shy,"  who  fear  the  noise  and 
the  recoil  of  the  gun. 

Who  has  heard  of  the  "ball-shy"  golfer?  Yet 
there  are  many  thousands  of  him  and  her,  who 
have  been  converted  into  golf  cowards  because 
they  were  set  a  task  quite  beyond  their  powers  at 
the  beginning.  They  were  made  to  feel  that  the 
ball  was  their  master,  their  tyrant,  instead  of 
their  faithful  little  friend  and  servitor. 

Some  few  escape  being  ball-shy,  who  are  started 
late  in  life  on  wrong  methods,  but  thousands  suc- 
cumb. Now  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the 
proper  way  to  start  teaching  any  one  golf  is  on  the 
putting  green.  Putting  is  quite  half  the  game  of 
golf  and  it  is  the  most  important  part  of  the  game ; 
yet  it  is  ridiculously  and  shamefully  neglected. 

The  right  place  from  which  to  start  any  one  who 
really  desires  to  learn  golf  thoroughly  is  any- 


THE  NEW  GOLF  3 

where  from  six  inches  to  a  foot  from  the  hole. 
From  this  point  one  may  back  the  pupil  through 
his  clubs  until  he  arrives  at  the  tee — and  his 
driver. 

When  I  first  wrote  this  in  1909  it  was,  although 
most  obviously  sound,  regarded  as  revolutionary 
teaching.  Now,  the  best  professionals  start  their 
pupils,  if  not  on,  at,  the  green.  Any  one  who  has 
patience  and  perseverance  enough  to  start  in  this 
way,  and  to  keep  on  at  it  for  some  time,  will  be 
astonished  at  the  solidity  it  will  give  to  the  foun- 
dation of  his  game — his  putting — and  at  the  con- 
fidence it  will  breed  in  him  when  playing  through 
the  green  and  from  the  tee. 

There  are  good  reasons  for  this.  Perhaps  the 
first  is  that  this  method  of  learning  teaches  one 
in  a  very  natural  and  easy  manner  to  keep  one's 
eye  on  the  ball.  Starting  within  a  foot  of  the  hole 
gives  one  a  stroke  which  one  feels  sure  of  being 
able  to  play.  It  also  is  of  such  a  length  that  both 
the  hole  and  the  ball  are  within  one's  focus.  This 
means  that  one  has  no  temptation  to  raise  the  head 
and  lift  the  eye  in  order  to  follow  the  run  of  the 
ball  to  the  hole.  This  is  a  matter  of  much  greater 
importance  than  is  generally  understood.  The  be- 
ginner does  not  start  with  his  ball  cocked  up  on  a 
little  mound  of  sand.  He  has  to  play  it  as  it  lies 
on  the  green.  He  gradually  becomes  accustomed 


4  THE  NEW  GOLF 

to  this  and  so  it  seems  quite  natural  for  him  to  do 
so  when,  by  easy  stages,  he  gets  off  the  green  and 
has  to  play  his  chip-shots. 

I  know  perfectly  well  that  very  few  golfers  ever 
learned  in  this  manner.  I  certainly  did  not,  but 
that  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  there  is  a  right 
way  and  a  wrong  way  to  do  everything.  I  am 
giving  the  right  way  in  golf,  but  it  is  not  com- 
pulsory if  any  one  cares  to  sacrifice  the  advantage 
of  it  and  to  learn  in  the  usual  way  the  most  difficult 
strokes  first. 

From  a  purely  scientific  point  of  view  there  can 
be  no  doubt  of  the  advantages  of  the  course  sug- 
gested by  me,  and  I  am  building  up  my  book  to  a 
great  extent  on  these  lines ;  but  from  the  practical 
side  of  the  question  it  will  probably  be  found 
expedient  to  encourage  any  one  who  shows  any 
ability  to  do  so  by  letting  him  have  a  few  hits  at 
the  ball  with  a  driver.  The  insistent  cry  of  the 
beginner  to  the  professional  is  "  Teach  me  to 
swing."  The  result  unfortunately  is  that  fre- 
quently they  get  the  swing  and  nothing  else.  So 
those,  who  want  to  do  so,  may  read  the  analysis 
of  the  drive  and  the  master  stroke  after  they  have 
studied  the  chapter  on  putting. 

The  player,  who  will  learn  as  I  suggest,  will 
make  the  valuable — to  elderly  players  the  invalu- 
able— discovery  that  the  drive  is  much  more  of  an 


5    5 


i    - 


THE  NEW  GOLF  5 

exaggerated  put  than  is  commonly  understood, 
and  this  apparently  extreme  statement  has  special 
application,  as  will  be  seen  later,  to  the  master- 
shot  in  golf,  the  drive  with  back- spin. 

Too  many  beginners  worry  about  their  style. 
The  player  who  thinks  of  style  first  at  any  game 
deserves  all  that  comes  to  him.  No  man  who 
cares  anything  about  a  game,  certainly  no  man  who 
is  worthy  to  play  golf,  should  worry  about  his 
style.  His  whole  endeavor  should  be  to  produce 
his  strokes  in  a  manner  that  is  mechanically  per- 
fect. If  he  succeeds  in  doing  this  he  may  rest 
assured  that  he  will  have  in  his  stroke  so  much 
of  style  or  finish  as  it  is  possible  for  him  to  get. 
If  he  should  desire  style  at  the  expense  of  efficiency 
I  have  no  word  for  him. 


CHAPTEK  II 

GRIPPING  AND   SOLING  THE  CLUB 

THERE  are  quite  a  number  of  different  grips  that 
may  be  advantageously  used  for  playing  golf — by 
different  people.  I  have  very  little  doubt  that  of 
the  grips  commonly  used  that  which  is  generally 
called  "The  Vardon  grip"  is  the  best. 

The  Vardon  grip  was  not  introduced  by  Harry 
Vardon.  It  was  known  and  used  before  Vardon 
took  it  up,  but  he  undoubtedly  set  the  fashion  for 
it  and  it  is  the  best  of  the  known  overlapping  or 
interlocking  grips. 

I  may  say  at  once  that  I  do  not  believe  in  any 
of  the  interlocking  grips  although  we  have  one 
or  two  cases  of  golfers  who  have  made  history  by 
the  use  of  some  form  of  interlocking  grip.  I  can- 
not see  any  possible  advantage  in  an  interlocking 
grip  that  cannot  be  obtained  better  by  an  over- 
lapping hold. 

The  outstanding  features  of  the  Vardon  grip 
are  that  the  thumb  of  the  left  hand  is  buried  be- 
tween the  palm  of  the  right  hand  and  the  shaft 
of  the  club  and  the  little  finger  of  the  right  hand 


THE  NEW  GOLF  7 

rides  on  the  forefinger  of  the  left.  This  grip,  with 
slight  differences  in  the  positions  of  the  hands  on 
the  shaft,  is  used  by  Braid,  Taylor,  Vardon,  Dun- 
can and  many  of  the  leading  golfers.  The  great 
claim  made  for  it  is  that  it  brings  the  wrists  more 
closely  together  and  so  leads  to  a  more  harmonious 
action. 

There  is  very  little  doubt  that  this  claim  is  well 
founded.  It  is  not,  however,  so  certain  that  the 
advantages  of  the  grip  are  so  great  as  is  commonly 
supposed  in  England.  In  America  the  grip  is  not 
nearly  so  popular  as  it  is  in  England  where  golfers 
are  extremely  prone  to  follow  the  lead  of  success. 
Some  very  fine  English  golfers  have  not  adopted 
the  overlapping  grip  and  in  America  a  great  num- 
ber of  the  leading  players  still  use  the  old  two 
handed  grip. 

In  speaking  against  the  Vardon  overlapping 
grip  one  is  confronted  by  a  fairly  stiff  argument 
in  the  shape  of  at  least  sixteen  open  championships 
won  with  it.  It  sounds  almost  revolutionary  to 
say  it  but  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  this  does  not 
necessarily  prove  that  the  Vardon  grip  is  the  best 
for  golf  or  even  for  the  majority  of  golfers.  On 
the  contrary,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  for  the 
majority  of  golfers  it  is  a  dangerous  grip  and  one 
that  is  calculated  to  induce  the  player  to  ease  his 
grip  with  his  right  hand  during  the  swing,  and 


8  THE  NEW  GOLF 

this  is  a  particularly  objectionable  habit  to  culti- 
vate. 

If  one  must  use  an  overlapping  grip  I  am  in- 
clined to  think  that  the  reverse  overlap  to  that  used 
by  Vardon  is  safer  and  for  at  least  ninety  per 
cent,  of  golfers  more  efficacious  than  that  in  gen- 
eral use.  In  this  case  the  forefinger  of  the  left 
hand  over-rides  the  little  finger  of  the  right,  the 
left  thumb  as  in  the  Vardon  grip  lying  at  the  base 
of  the  right  thumb  between  the  shaft  and  the  palm 
of  the  right  hand. 

The  Vardon  grip,  in  my  opinion,  tends  unduly 
to  weaken  the  grip  of  the  right  hand  while  the 
suggested  overlap  gives  the  right  hand  its  proper 
position  on  the  club,  does  away  with  the  great 
tendency  to  open  up  the  right  hand,  and  exerts  a 
most  beneficial  influence  in  checking  one  of  the 
most  prolific  causes  of  inaccuracy  in  golf,  namely, 
the  deep-rooted  tendency  to  overswing  that  seems 
to  be  inherent  in  most  golfers — or  would-be  golfers. 
This  shortening  of  the  swing  is  of  much  greater 
importance  that  is  realized,  and  I  shall  have  oc- 
casion later  to  deal  with  it  fully. 

It  is  however  impossible  to  dogmatize  about 
the  matter  of  grip.  There  is  probably  one  grip 
that  is  best  for  most  players.  I  think  that  the  new 
grip  suggested  by  me  will,  in  the  course  of  a  few 
years,  perhaps  sooner,  come  into  general  use,  but 


THE  NEW  GOLF  9 

even  then,  it  will  not  suit  every  one.  So  it  resolves 
itself  into  this  for  the  individual.  He  must  try 
the  various  grips  and  choose  the  one  that  suits 
him  best,  if  he  is  going  on  his  own  judgment,  as- 
sisted by  the  book,  or  he  must  (in  reason,  of 
course)  follow  the  advice  of  his  professional,  but 
always  I  should  advise  a  beginner,  and  indeed 
any  player  who  is  off  his  game,  to  try  the  new 
overlap,  as  I  am  convinced  that  it  has  advantages 
that  the  Vardon  overlapping  grip  does  not  pos- 
sess. 

I  do  not  want  to  enter  into  any  wearisome  argu- 
ment in  favor  of  the  new  overlap.  I  may  however 
direct  the  attention  of  my  readers  to  the  remark- 
able records  of  Messrs.  John  Ball  and  H.  H. 
Hilton.  The  Vardon  overlapping  grip  played  no 
part  in  making  their  fame,  therefore  it  is  at  least 
certain  that  the  overlapping  grip  is  not  a  neces- 
sity. Argumentative  people  may  point  to  the 
records  of  Braid,  Taylor  and  Vardon.  The 
answer  is  that  probably  these  men  would  have 
won  with  any  of  the  grips  used  in  golf.  We  may 
even  go  further  and  say  that  we  cannot  possibly 
say  how  much  better  they  might  play  if  they  were 
to  adopt  the  proposed  method  of  overlapping  in- 
stead of  that  used  by  them. 

Now  there  will  be  few  to  deny  that  the  golf  of 
Messrs.  Ball  and  Hilton  is  right-handed  golf. 


io  THE  NEW  GOLF 

Allowing  this  to  be  the  case  what  argument  can 
we  find  in  changing  grips  for  making  so  sudden  and 
radical  a  change  as  to  deprive  the  right  hand 
of  its  place  of  honor  on  the  shaft  and  for  giving 
that  to  the  left,  for  that  is  what  we  do  in  the 
Vardon  overlap.  We  take  away  the  full  grip  with 
the  right  and  give  that  to  the  left.  In  the  pro- 
posed overlap  I  proceed  by  the  more  natural  stage 
and  allow  the  right  hand  to  take  its  proper  place 
on  the  shaft  without  being  interfered  with  in  any 
way,  for  the  insertion  of  one  thumb  at  the  base 
of  the  ball  of  the  other  thumb  cannot  be  regarded 
as  an  interference ;  indeed  it  is  probably  very  use- 
ful in  tending  to  prevent  one  getting  too  much  of  a 
palm  hold. 

Gripping  the  club  correctly  is  unquestionably  of 
very  great  importance  and  it  behooves  the  be- 
ginner to  try  most  carefully  and  earnestly  to  get 
the  grip  that  suits  his  hands  and  build  best.  It  is, 
as  I  have  at  various  times  indicated,  almost  im- 
possible to  dogmatize  on  this  subject,  but  there  is 
another  matter  of  fundamental  importance  which 
should  be  taught  just  as  soon  as  one  knows  how  to 
hold  a  club,  yet  is  most  consistently  neglected  in 
nearly  every  book  on  golf  and  by  at  least  nineteen 
of  twenty  professionals.  I  refer  to  the  soling  of 
the  club. 

Many  quite  good  players  handicap  themselves 


THE  NEW  GOLF  n 

by  their  faulty  method  of  soling  the  club.  It  is 
not  unusual  to  see  golfers  addressing  the  ball  with 
the  toe  of  the  driver  cocked  up  in  the  air  and  the 
heel  resting  on  the  ground.  This  is  a  mistake. 
At  the  address  one  should  strive  to  place  the  club 
as  nearly  as  may  be  in  relation  to  the  ball  in  the 
same  position  as  one  intends  it  to  be  when  it  re- 
turns to  the  ball  in  the  downward  swing. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  sole  of  the  club 
is  meant  for  the  club  to  rest  on.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary in  addressing  a  ball  that  the  club  shall  rest 
on  its  sole,  but  in  ninety  per  cent,  of  golf  strokes  it 
is  advisable  that  the  sole  should  be  allowed  to 
perform  its  office.  The  loft  of  a  club  bears  a 
definite  relation  to  the  sole.  This  has  been  settled 
by  the  club-maker.  Therefore  in  addressing  your 
ball  let  your  club  rest  on  its  sole.  This  is  a  good 
general  rule  though  it  is  not  without  many  excep- 
tions to  prove  it.  For  instance,  my  most  prized 
mashie  has  practically  no  sole,  for  it  starts  curv- 
ing upwards  and  backwards  directly  it  leaves  the 
lower  edge  of  the  face  of  the  club. 

A  player  should  not  require  the  sole  of  his  club 
by  which  to  sole  his  club,  but  it  is  undeniably 
expedient  in  most  cases,  when  addressing  the  ball, 
to  lay  the  club  so  that  it  rests  easily  and  naturally 
with  the  whole  of  the  sole  in  contact  with  the  turf. 

As  one  gains  experience  it  is  probable  that  one 


12  THE  NEW  GOLF 

will  have  a  club  or  two,  especially  in  the  future, 
that  does  not  give  the  fullest  indication  of  how 
to  sole  it  by  the  shape  and  breadth  of  its  sole; 
also,  of  course,  the  soles  of  many  clubs  are  now 
curved.  The  player  will  however  be  well  advised, 
wherever  possible,  to  sole  his  club  in  the  manner 
indicated  by  the  make  of  the  club.  I  cannot  make 
this  too  clear,  for  it  is  a  matter  of  the  greatest 
importance.  Let  me  therefore  give  a  very  simple 
yet  forcible  illustration. 

One  is  addressing  one's  ball  for  a  drive  with 
an  ordinary  driver  or  brassy.  Imagine  that  the 
shaft  is  sawn  off  at  the  socket.  Take  the  club 
head  and  put  it  down  on  the  turf  behind  the  ball 
so  that  it  rests  fairly  and  flatly  behind  the  ball, 
and  so  that  a  line  taken  from  the  face  of  the  club 
through  the  ball  to  the  hole  would  form  with  the 
front  edge  of  the  face  of  the  club  two  right  angles. 

The  idea  in  one's  mind  must  be  that  the  face  of 
the  club  runs  at  right  angles  to  the  line  to  the  hole 
at  the  moment  of  address  and  particularly  at  the 
moment  of  impact.  This  is  always  of  vital  im- 
portance especially  in  putting. 

Eemember  that  there  must  be  no  cocking  up  of 
the  club  in  any  way.  It  must  rest  truly  and  fairly 
on  the  sole.  There  are  four  ways  in  which  people 
offend.  They  address  with  the  club  cocked  up  at 
the  toe,  which  is  very  bad.  Others  address  with 


THE  NEW  GOLF  13 

the  club  down  at  the  toe.  This  is  a  rarer  and  a 
worse  fault. 

A  by  no  means  uncommon  fault  is  to  address 
with  the  front  of  the  sole  a  little  off  the  ground 
while  others  again  are  inclined  to  lift  the  back  of 
the  club  and  press  down  in  front.  All  of  these 
eccentricities  should  be  avoided  and  the  club  al- 
lowed to  rest  firmly  and  lightly  on  the  grass. 

Most  professionals  now  sole  the  club  in  front  of 
the  ball  when  addressing  for  the  put.  It  is  as- 
tonishing how  these  fashions  spring  up  and  take 
hold.  The  idea  is  that  one  is  able  to  get  a  better 
line  from  the  face  of  the  putter  to  the  hole  if  one's 
view  is  unobstructed  than  one  can  if  the  ball 
comes  between  one's  putter  and  the  hole.  Great 
putting  was  done,  before  this  method  was  intro- 
duced, by  people  who  have  not  used  it,  much  very 
bad  putting  has  been  done  by  champions  who  have 
used  it,  and  much  really  good  work  has  been  done 
by  players  who  habitually  use  it. 

This  is  a  fair  summing  up  of  the  case  so  far  as 
regards  this  method  of  address.  Most  of  the 
great  players  in  England  do  it,  but  unless  one  can 
put  better  this  way  than  in  the  old  style  it  is  in- 
advisable to  worry  about  altering  one's  method. 
There  are  many  details  in  connection  with  soling 
the  club  and  putting  that  are  of  infinitely  greater 
importance  than  this  matter. 


CHAPTEE  III 

PREVALENT  MISCONCEPTIONS  ABOUT  THE  GOLF  STROKE 

THERE  is  so  much  misconception  about  the  stroke 
in  golf  that  it  is  expedient  to  dispose  of  as  much 
of  it  as  possible  before  dealing  with  the  strokes 
in  the  usual  course. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  I  say  ''the  stroke  in  golf." 
We  shall  be  told  that  there  are  many  strokes  in 
golf.  Well,  so  there  are,  but  it  will  trouble  any 
one  to  get  one  that  is  not  an  exaggerated  put  or 
some  part  of  a  drive.  Indeed  there  are  not  want- 
ing those  who  assert  that  a  drive  is  merely  a 
highly  developed  put.  We  need  not  follow  this 
argument  too  far,  although  it  may  be  said,  right 
at  the  beginning,  that  for  many  people,  particu- 
larly those  who  take  up  golf  late  in  life,  the  nearer 
they  can  keep  their  drive  to  the  put  the  better 
for  them;  and  this  has  been  proved  to  be  very 
sound  golf. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  for  any  one  who 
intends  to  learn  golf,  or  for  any  one  who  has 
learned,  or  is  learning  it,  and  is  not  satisfied  with 
the  result,  to  understand  that  above  everything, 
if  one  wishes  to  play  a  fairly  good  game,  it  is 

14 


THE  NEW  GOLF  15 

necessary  to  give  nature  a  chance.  This  is  pre- 
cisely what  a  vast  number  of  people  will  not  do  at 
golf.  Why  they  persist  in  this  foolishness  is  the 
one  great  mystery  of  golf. 

If  one  were  to  take  the  ordinary  man  up  to  a 
daisy  drooping  its  head  in  a  field,  hand  him  a 
walking  stick  and  say  "Let  me  see  you  cut  its  head 
off "  the  chances  are  that  he  would  unconsciously 
play  a  perfectly  good  right  handed  golf  stroke. 
With  many  it  would  no  doubt  be  a  trifle  short  as 
the  suggested  operation  would  not  need  much 
strength,  but  it  would  be  a  natural  hit,  and  that  is 
what  the  golf  stroke,  to  be  successful,  must  be. 

We  must  now  try  to  disencumber  our  minds  of 
quite  a  number  of  strange  ideas  which  are  very 
prevalent  amongst  golfers  and  golf  writers.  It 
is  amazing  what  a  great  number  of  things  it  is 
expedient  to  forget  when  once  one  gets  opposite 
the  ball.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  is  just  one 
thing  to  keep  firmly  in  mind  and  one  only  and  that 
is  to  hit  it.  If  the  result  is  unsatisfactory  one 
may  then  hold  the  post-mortem. 

"Slow  back." 

Of  all  the  parrot  cries  of  the  links  "Slow  back" 
is  perhaps  the  most  insistent  and  also  one  of  the 
most  unnecessary.  When  once  one  has  got  one's 
swing  under  control,  to  insist  on  one's  going  back 


16  THE  NEW  GOLF 

slowly,  and  to  think  of  doing  it,  is  merely  adding 
another  difficulty  to  the  swing. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  go  back  more  slowly  than 
just  enough  to  ensure  that  there  is  no  conflict  of 
forces  at  the  top  of  the  swing  when  the  upward 
swing  ceases  and  the  downward  swing  begins. 

In  a  natural  swing  it  is  quite  unlikely  that  there 
will  be  any  conflict  for  a  peculiar  reason  that  has 
not,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  ever  been  stated  in  a 
golf  book  or  an  article  on  golf.  The  downward 
swing  really  starts  before  the  upward  swing  is 
finished. 

This  is  a  paradoxical  statement  but  it  is  quite 
sound  as  any  one  who  is  sufficiently  interested  can 
prove  by  a  close  study  of  motion  pictures.  The 
body  leads  the  hands  and  arm  in  the  return  stroke. 
It  starts  to  twist  back  towards  the  ball  before  the 
club  has  dropped  to  the  lowest  point  over  the 
player's  left  shoulder.  I  believe  I  am  correct  in 
saying  that  this  is  the  first  time  this  has  ever  been 
brought  out. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  even  in  the  quickest 
of  drives,  unless  the  action  is  quite  stiff  and  un- 
natural, there  is  not,  as  is  usually  supposed,  a 
moment  at  the  top  of  the  swing  when  the  upward 
swing  gives  place  suddenly  to  the  downward.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  one  merges  in  the  other  in 
such  a  remarkable  manner  that  it  would  be  im- 


THE  NEW  OVERLAPPING  OR  VAILE  GRIP 


THE  NEW  GOLF  17 

possible  to  say  where  or  when  the  downward  swing 
begins.  Any  student  of  golf  who  thinks  that  he 
can  do  this  will  find  his  time  well  spent  with 
action  photographs  of  the  famous  golfers  of  the 
world  at  the  top  of  their  swing. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  top  of  the  swing 
is  a  critical  position.  If  one  arrives  at  the  cor- 
rect position  there  one  has  a  reasonably  good 
chance  of  returning  correctly  to  the  ball.  It  will 
therefore  be  seen  that  one  must  in  swinging  back 
be  careful  not  to  do  so  with  undue  speed  for  in 
that  case  there  would  be  a  chance  of  introducing 
an  element  of  unsteadiness  into  the  swing  at  a 
point  where  it  is  especially  undesirable. 

There  is  an  excellent  reason  against  "Slow 
back"  which  one  does  not  very  often  hear  ad- 
vanced. It  is  impossible  to  preserve  anything  like 
rhythm  in  the  swing  if  one  consciously  tries  to 
make  one  half  of  it  much  slower  than  the  other. 
Anything  of  this  nature  should  be  by  sub-con- 
scious effort,  otherwise  the  due  relation  of  the  up- 
ward and  downward  swing  is  lost.  This  ancient 
"  slow-back "  maxim  is  perhaps  the  first  thing  to 
forget  in  making  the  golf  stroke. 

Swinging  back. 

A  very  misleading  idea  of  the  beginning  of  the 
golf  stroke  is  generally  given  by  books  and  in- 


i8  THE  NEW  GOLF 

stmctors.  The  pupil  is  told  to  swing  the  club 
back.  In  the  address  the  club  is  practically  at 
the  bottom  of  its  arc.  It  cannot  swing  upward 
without  power  being  found  for  it.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  club  is  picked  up  off  the  ground  by  the 
hands  and  wrists  and  carried  naturally  back  by 
them  and  the  arms  even  as  the  walking  stick  was 
in  the  daisy  cutting  experiment. 

Any  attempt  to  swing  the  club  back  will  very 
likely  result  in  the  hands  getting  away  backward 
before  the  head  of  the  club,  which  is  a  bad  fault. 
In  the  swing  of  most  of  the  old  St.  Andrews 
golfers  the  first  thing  in  the  swing  back  was  the 
press  forward. 

This  is  another  very  sound  paradox.  Directly 
the  player  starts  to  hit  the  ball  he  pushes  his  hands 
forward  an  inch  or  two  which  turns  the  face  of  his 
club  over  a  little  toward  the  ball.  I  have  never 
heard  of  or  seen  any  explanation  of  this  habit, 
but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  gives  one  a  nice 
clean  pick  up  of  the  club  and  it  certainly  tends 
to  prevent  the  wrists  hurrying  away  before  the 
head  of  the  club. 

"As  you  go  up  so  you  come  down." 

This  is  one  of  the  most  revered  of  golf 's  hoary 
old  traditions,  most  of  which  are  extremely  un- 
sound, as  indeed  is  this.  One  has  undoubtedly 


THE  NEW  GOLF  19 

a  great  tendency  to  come  back  to  the  ball  by  the 
same  route  as  that  which  one  uses  to  get  to  the 
top  of  the  swing.  It  will,  however,  be  apparent 
that  if  one  goes  back,  as  one  is  instructed  to,  well 
in  a  line  with  the  ball  for  some  inches  and  fairly, 
or  perhaps  I  should  say  comparatively,  slowly, 
and  then  returns  at  top-speed  to  the  ball,  as  one 
must  in  order  to  drive  well,  one  will  return  by 
the  most  direct  route  possible,  which  route  one 
certainly  did  not  take  on  the  upward  swing.  This 
is  another  of  those  incorrect  and  unnecessary 
"axioms"  that  may  with  much  advantage  be  for- 
gotten. 

There  is  one  good  point  in  this  unsound 
"axiom."  It  may  perhaps  make  the  golfer  strive 
both  in  the  swing  back  and  the  downward  swing 
to  keep  his  club  head  travelling  for  as  long  a  time 
as  possible,  or  rather  for  as  great  a  distance  as 
convenient,  both  in  the  upward  and  downward 
swings,  in  the  line  to  the  hole  produced  through 
the  ball.  This  is  of  importance. 

Distribution  of  weight. 

Practically  all  books  and  all  professional  golfers 
teach  the  distribution  of  weight  in  the  golf  swing 
incorrectly.  This  is  a  very  broad  and  sweeping 
statement  but  it  is  a  fact.  The  distribution  of 
weight  particularly  in  the  drive  is  of  vital  impor- 


20  THE  NEW  GOLF 

tance.  All  the  greatest  golfers  say  that  at  the  top 
of  the  swing  the  weight  must  be  on  the  right  leg. 
This  is  quite  wrong,  and  if  one  follows  their  in- 
structions, it  is  a  physical  impossibility. 

What  one  must  try  for  is  to  have  the  weight 
absolutely  evenly  distributed  between  the  legs  at 
the  top  of  the  swing.  If  one  tries  for  this  the 
major  portion  of  the  weight  will  go  where  it  ought 
to  be,  namely,  onto  the  left  leg  and  not  onto  the 
right. 

The  great  golfers  tell  us  that  at  the  top  of  the 
swing  all  the  weight  goes  onto  the  right  leg.  This 
is  very  bad  golf.  Since  I  exposed  the  fallacy  of 
this  statement  some  of  them  now  go  to  the  other 
extreme  and  say  that  it  must  all  be  borne  on  the 
left  foot.  This  is  probably  a  worse  error.  The 
truth  lies  between  these  extremes.  Try  for  equal 
distribution  and  one  will  get  a  slight  excess  on  the 
left  foot,  which  is  as  it  should  be. 

This  matter  is  however  of  so  much  importance 
that  we  must,  in  dealing  with  the  drive,  give  it 
further  attention. 

The  golf  stroke  a  sweep  and  not  a  hit. 

Probably  the  most  remarkable  misconception 
on  the  part  of  the  most  famous  golfers  and  au- 
thors is  the  wonderful  idea  that  the  golf  drive  is 
a  sweep  and  not  a  hit. 


THE  NEW  GOLF  21 

I  may  mention  incidentally  that  one  of  the  most 
eminent  scientists  in  England  measured  the  dura- 
tion of  the  drive  in  golf  and  found  it  to  be  one  ten- 
thousandth  of  a  second.  This,  I  may  mention 
parenthetically,  is  truly  a  gentle  sweep! 

This  idea  of  sweeping  the  ball  off  the  tee  has 
been  encouraged  to  an  amazing  extent  by  all  the 
leading  professionals  and  writers,  even  by  J.  H. 
Taylor,  whose  terrific  right  forearm  punch  is  so 
famous. 

James  Braid  also  encourages  the  idea.  In 
Chapter  VIII  of  How  to  play  Golf  he  says:  "The 
chief  thing  to  bear  in  mind  is  that  there  must  be, 
in  the  case  of  play  with  the  driver  and  the  brassie, 
no  attempt  to  hit  the  ball,  which  must  be  simply 
swept  from  the  tee  and  carried  forward  in  the 
even  and  rapid  swing  of  the  club.  The  drive  in 
golf  differs  from  almost  every  other  stroke  in 
every  game  in  which  the  propulsion  of  a  ball  is 
the  object.  In  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word, 
implying  a  sudden  and  sharp  impact,  it  is  not  a 
'hit'  when  it  is  properly  done." 

This  really  is  a  very  remarkable  statement.  If 
one  ten-thousandth  of  a  second  is  not  a  sufficiently 
"sudden  and  sharp  impact "  to  warrant  the  golf 
stroke  being  called  a  hit  I  should  like  to  know 
what  speed  is  demanded  before  we  go  from  the 
realm  of  the  sweep  into  that  of  the  hit. 


22  THE  NEW  GOLF 

As  a  matter  of  simple  fact  and  plain  common 
sense  the  stroke  in  golf,  except  possibly  in  the  put, 
is  a  hit  and  not  a  sweep.  Even  in  the  properly 
played  put  it  is  open  to  argument  whether  or  not 
it  is  technically  a  hit.  With  many,  who  are  usual- 
ly unreliable  putters,  it  undoubtedly  is  a  hit,  but 
that  matter  we  must  consider  more  fully  in  an- 
other place. 

This  strangely  persistent  delusion  about  the 
golf  stroke  being  a  sweep  has  ruined  the  game 
of  many  thousands  of  players.  I  do  not  know  of 
any  stroke  in  the  whole  realm  of  athletics  wherein, 
at  the  moment  of  impact,  the  striking  imple- 
ment is  traveling  so  fast  as  the  golf  club  does 
at  that  time,  yet  I  never  heard  of  this  very  silly 
claim  being  set  up  in  tennis,  cricket,  polo,  or  in- 
deed, in  any  other  game.  I  am  glad  to  say  that 
the  development  of  modern  thought  is  tending  to 
restrain  these  flights  of  imagination  and  that  the 
player  is  getting  every  day  a  greater  chance  to 
be  himself,  to  play  the  game  as  every  game  that 
is  worthy  of  the  name  should  be  played — naturally 
and  unaffectedly. 

Regulation  of  stroke  during  impact. 

The  player  must  forget  everything  that  he  has 
ever  read  or  been  told  as  to  what  he  can  do  to 
the  ball  while  it  is  on  the  club,  that  is,  during 


THE  NEW  GOLF  23 

adhesion.  The  club  and  the  ball  are  in  actual 
contact  and  travel  for  a  very  short  distance  to- 
gether. This  is  technically  called  adhesion.  This 
period  is  so  much  less  than  what  we  understand 
by  the  word  instantaneous  that  it  is  quite  useless 
to  try  to  convey  to  my  readers  any  idea  of  its 
duration.  It  has  been  computed — as  I  have  said — 
by  one  of  our  most  capable  physicists  at  one  ten- 
thousandth  of  a  second. 

It  will  be  quite  apparent  then  that  it  is  utterly 
useless  for  a  human  being  to  think  that  he  can 
time  his  stroke  in  such  a  manner  that  any  special 
thing  he  does  in  that  period  can  have  any  effect 
on  the  ball. 

We  are  told  by  quite  experienced  players,  like 
Mr.  W.  J.  Travis  for  example:  "The  science  of 
the  stroke  consists  in  hitting  very  sharply,  and 
turning  the  wrists  upward  immediately  after  the 
ball  is  struck. '  > 

Now  the  truth  is  that  whatever  one  does  to  the 
golf  ball  during  impact  is  merely  an  incident  in  the 
predetermined  course  or  arc  of  the  club  head. 
The  stroke  is  played  at  such  a  great  pace  that  it 
is  impossible  to  do  anything  during  impact  that 
is  not  in  the  swing  of  the  club  both  before  and 
after  impact.  James  Braid  emphasizes  this.  Let 
us  see  what  he  says :  "While  it  is  of  course  in  the 
highest  degree  necessary  that  the  ball  should  be 


24  THE  NEW  GOLF 

taken  in  exactly  the  right  place  on  the  club  and  in 
the  right  manner,  this  will  have  to  be  done  by  the 
proper  regulation  of  all  the  other  parts  of  the 
swing  and  any  effort  to  direct  the  club  on  to  it 
in  a  particular  manner  just  as  the  ball  is  being 
reached,  cannot  be  attended  by  success." 

This  strange  fallacy  was  very  prevalent  in  Eng- 
land until  I  demonstrated  its  falseness.  There 
were  not  wanting  serious  students  of  the  game 
who  asserted  that  they  actually  saw  Vardon  pro- 
ducing his  pulled  drive  by  turning  his  wrists  over 
at  the  moment  of  impact.  It  was  years  before 
they  saw  the  futility  of  the  action,  if  it  had  been 
used,  and  the  falseness  of  the  assumption  that  it 
was  used. 

It  is  however  so  important  that  the  student 
should  get  rid  of  any  lingering  notion  of  this  kind 
that  I  quote  James  Braid  again.  He  says:  "If 
the  ball  is  taken  by  the  toe  or  heel  of  the  club,  or 
is  topped,  or  if  the  club  gets  too  much  under  it,  the 
remedy  for  these  faults  is  not  to  be  found  in  a 
more  deliberate  directing  of  the  club  on  to  the 
ball  just  as  the  two  are  about  to  come  into  con- 
tact, but  in  the  better  and  more  exact  regulation 
of  the  swing  the  whole  way  through  up  to  this 
point." 

He  continues :  ' 1  The  object  of  these  remarks  is 
merely  to  emphasize  again,  in  the  best  place,  that 


THE  NEW  GOLF  25 

the  dispatching  of  the  ball  from  the  tee  by  the 
driver,  in  the  downward  swing,  is  merely  an  in- 
cident of  the  whole  business. " 

I  repeat  these  important  words  "merely  an  in- 
cident of  the  whole  business. "  I  have  in  various 
places  emphasized  this  matter  as  much  as  possible. 
It  is  another  of  the  many  fallacies  of  golf  that 
must  be  absolutely  forgotten  by  the  learner  or  the 
golfer.  Any  attempt  to  introduce  it  into  practi- 
cal golf  must  end  in  trouble. 

Importance  of  the  follow-through. 

The  player,  especially  the  beginner,  must  get 
rid  of  the  idea  of  the  importance  of  the  follow- 
through  in  golf.  A  totally  disproportionate  place 
is  given  to  this  part  of  the  stroke  in  the  minds  of 
most  people.  The  follow-through,  by  which  we 
mean  the  proper  completion  of  the  stroke  after 
contact  with  the  ball  has  ceased,  is  in  itself  of  no 
practical  importance. 

Let  me  illustrate  this  clearly.  A  man  may  have 
played  a  magnificent  drive  both  as  regards  length 
and  direction  and  his  follow-through  may  have 
been  perfect.  Supposing  now  for  the  sake  of 
argument  that  a  stray  bullet  had  caught  the  head 
of  his  club,  at  say  six  inches  after  the  ball  had  left 
it  and  had  smashed  it  to  pieces,  the  result  of  his 
stroke  would  have  been  just  as  good.  The  im- 


26  THE  NEW  GOLF 

portance  of  a  good  follow-through  is  that  it  is  an 
indication  that  the  first  part  of  the  stroke  was  well 
played.  The  pace  of  the  drive  at  golf  is  so  great, 
that,  provided  one  plays  the  first  part  of  it  up  to 
the  impact  correctly,  it  is  almost  impossible  to 
have  a  bad  follow- through. 

Players  may  be  excused  for  thinking  that  the 
follow-through  has  an  influence  on  the  flight  of  the 
ball,  although  obviously  nothing  that  the  club  does 
after  impact  can  affect  the  carry,  for  James  Braid 
himself  subscribes  to  this  delusion.  He  says : 
"The  success  of  the  drive  is  not  only  made  by 
what  has  gone  before,  but  it  is  also  due  largely  to 
the  course  taken  by  the  club  after  the  ball  has  been 
hit." 

I  can  remember  playing  a  very  good  drive 
across  a  small  river  and  about  two  hundred  yards 
up  a  hill  on  the  other  side.  The  tee  was  within 
a  few  yards  of  the  river.  The  force  of  my  drive 
smashed  my  club  head  off  at  the  splice  and  carried 
it  away  into  the  river,  but  I  had  never  played  a 
better  shot  at  this  hole,  nor  did  I  ever  do  so  after- 
wards. If  I  had  ever  suffered  from  the  delusion 
about  the  follow-through  affecting  the  stroke  this 
would  have  cured  me.  Every  golfer  who  has 
played  a  little  has  experienced,  or  seen,  or  heard 
of,  similar  incidents  to  that  which  I  have  told. 
Its  importance  lies  in  the  fact  that  one  can  use 


THE  NEW  GOLF  27 

it  to  expel  the  follow-through  bogey,  which  is 
dangerous,  for  it  takes  the  sufferer's  mind  for- 
ward to  a  part  of  the  stroke  that,  comparatively 
speaking,  is  unimportant  and  removes  it  from  the 
portion  that  is  all-important. 

Foot-work. 

Good  foot-work  is  important  in  golf,  but  a  vast 
number  of  people  have  very  little  idea  of  what 
good  foot-work  means.  Most  of  them  think  good 
foot-work  means  much  foot-work.  It  would  im- 
prove the  game  of  many  if  they  would  reduce 
their  foot-work  to  a  minimum  and  make  a  vow 
never  to  get  onto  their  toes ;  nay  more,  in  the  case 
of  many  elderly  players,  particularly  those  who 
have  started  late  in  life,  if  they  swore  never  to 
raise  their  heels,  and  kept  their  vow,  they  would  be 
saved  much  swearing  of  another  kind. 

Correct  foot- work  is  of  the  first  importance  in 
the  rhythm  of  a  perfect  stroke.  It  is  generally 
taught  wrongly  from  the  start.  One  is  told  that 
the  left  heel  comes  away  from  the  ground  when 
the  arms  have  gone  so  far  back  that  they  seem  to 
drag  the  left  heel  up.  This  is  bad  teaching.  The 
left  heel,  in  a  drive  of  perfect  rhythm,  leaves  the 
ground  almost  at  the  same  instant  as  the  club 
head  leaves  the  ball,  certainly  at  the  most  a  frac- 
tion of  a  second  later.  It  is  very  bad  form  to 


28  THE  NEW  GOLF 

wait  until  one  feels  the  demand  of  the  arms  be- 
fore one  raises  the  heel. 

The  exact  apportionment  of  the  weight  to  the 
feet  and  the  best  method  to  be  employed  will  be 
dealt  with  in  detail  in  the  chapter  on  the  drive. 
In  the  meantime,  however,  it  may  be  said  that  the 
methods  there  set  out  are  for  those  who  find  them- 
selves physically  able  to  use  them  without  undue 
fatigue.  In  the  perfect  foot-work  of  a  Vardon, 
for  instance,  there  is  an  amount  of  ankle  and  in- 
step work  that  would  be  very  fatiguing  for  an 
elderly  and  heavy  man.  This  should  be  avoided 
as  much  as  possible  by  any  one  answering  the 
description.  It  would  hardly  be  exaggeration  to 
say  that  there  is  excessive  foot-work  in  golf, 
especially  on  the  part  of  those  who  make  a  fetich 
of  the  full  swing. 

The  question  of  foot-work  may  be  fined  down  to 
a  very  small  point.  Our  feet  are  of  course  the 
base — some  would  say  bases,  or  basis — of  our 
drive.  In  a  stroke,  which  calls  for  such  mechani- 
cal precision  as  does  the  drive  in  golf,  we  must 
endeavor  to  have  our  base  as  firm  and  as  constant 
as  possible. 

It  behooves  every  golfer,  therefore,  be  he  young 
or  old,  once  he  has  taken  his  stance,  to  see  that 
until  he  has  hit  the  ball,  he  does  not  indulge  in 
any  heel-twisting.  That  is  a  new  term,  which 


Front  View 


Rear  View 
THE  VAILE  GRIP 


THE  NEW  GOLF  29 

means  that  if  you  move  your  heels  it  must  be 
merely  up  and  down,  until  after  the  ball  is  hit. 
Many  players  raise  the  left  heel  and  screw  round 
on  the  point  of  the  toe  so  that  the  left  heel  is 
presented  to  the  hole.  Let  one  try  to  finish  one's 
drive  in  this  position.  One  speedily  finds  that  it 
is  impracticable  without  moving  one's  heel  back 
into  position.  This  means  that  if,  at  the  top  of 
the  swing,  one  assumes  this  position,  one  must, 
during  the  downward  swing  be  shifting  round  on 
one 's  left  foot.  This  is  a  bad  habit,  which  must  be 
avoided,  for  such  a  performance  during  the  down- 
ward swing  cannot  possibly  make  for  accuracy. 
How  it  may  be  avoided  will  be  shown  in  the  chap- 
ter on  the  drive. 

The  power  of  the  left  hand  and  arm. 

In  attacking  the  idea  that  the  left  arm  is  the 
dominant  factor  in  the  stroke  at  golf  one  is  assail- 
ing a  tradition  as  old,  almost,  and  as  carefully 
nourished  as  golf  itself.  The  bare  idea  of  such 
heresy  set  the  golfing  world  of  England  in  a 
blaze,  but  by  the  time  the  flames  had  died  away, 
the  insolent  little  idol  was  badly  damaged. 

I  do  not  think  that  this  fetich  ever  had  quite  the 
hold  in  America  that  it  had  in  England  and  Scot- 
land. This  probably  is  explained  by  the  fact  that 
the  American  is  not  so  prone  to  "go  blind''  on 


30  THE  NEW  GOLF 

what  some  celebrity  says.  He  has  a  way  of  ask- 
ing for  reason.  To  use  his  expressive  phrase  he 
is  "from  Missouri, "  and  he  wants  to  be  shown. 
The  disciples  of  the  left  hand  and  arm  have  a  hard 
time  when  it  is  put  squarely  up  to  them  like  this, 
for  as  a  matter  of  fact  and  practical  golf,  it  is  al- 
most impossible  to  produce  any  satisfactory  evi- 
dence in  favor  of  this  ancient  claim. 

Notwithstanding  this,  nearly  all  the  great 
golfers,  including  Braid,  Taylor  and  Vardon, 
either  expressly  or  by  implication,  support  the 
idea.  The  player,  particularly  the  beginner,  must 
forget  this  notion  and  allow  himself  to  play  his 
stroke  naturally  and  without  any  idea  of  either 
hand  dominating  the  other.  One  of  them  almost 
certainly  will,  but  which  one  that  is  may  quite 
well  be  left  to  Mother  Nature. 

The  wrists. 

More  trouble  than  enough  is  caused  by  players 
being  told  how  to  get  their  wrists  into  their  drive. 
They  are  given  a  totally  erroneous  idea  of  the 
function  of  the  wrists.  This  is  another  of  the 
many  fallacies  of  golf  that  must  go  into  the  scrap- 
heap. 

There  is  in  golf  no  such  thing  as  a  pure  wrist 
stroke.  Even  the  put  does  not  come  within  this 
category.  There  is  no  stroke  in  golf  that  may 


THE  NEW  GOLF  31 

correctly  be  called  a  pure  wrist  stroke,  except  per- 
haps a  six-inch  put. 

It  is  important  that  the  student  should  have  a 
good  general  idea  of  these  common  delusions  and 
the  truth  before  he  settles  down  to  try  to  under- 
stand golf.  I  have,  for  that  reason,  where  neces- 
sary, dealt  briefly  and  concisely  with  most  of  the 
popular  misconceptions  about  the  game.  I  shall 
hereafter  in  various  chapters  have  occasion  to 
refer  more  specifically  to  these  points  as  their 
importance  warrants. 


CHAPTER  IV 

PUTTING 

PUTTING  is  the  foundation  of  the  game  of  golf. 
It  is  extremely  simple  and  easy  to  learn.  I  could 
take  an  old  lady,  who  could  not  by  any  possibility 
ever  make  even  a  fair  golfer,  and  convert  her  into 
a  good  putter,  yet  there  seems  to  be  a  general 
conspiracy  on  the  part  of  the  most  eminent  golfers 
to  make  out  that  one  cannot  be  really  good  on  the 
green  unless  one  was  born  with  a  special  putter 
in  one's  hand. 

This,  as  I  hope  to  show,  is  pure  moonshine. 
Putting  is  probably  the  simplest  operation  in  the 
simplest  game  that  is  played,  for  golf  is  a  simple 
game.  The  demand  of  golf  is  not  for  excessive 
brains.  It  is  for  extreme  mechanical  accuracy, 
accompanied  preferably  by  a  considerable  amount 
of  what  I  have  heard  called  " Saxon  phlegm"; 
but,  I  have  no  doubt  that,  provided  the  accuracy 
is  there,  the  American  variety  of  the  other  quali- 
fication will  be  found  sufficient  for  all  purposes. 

Putting  is  not  practised  as  it  should  be.  If  one 
would  only  realize  it  the  put  is  beyond  all  ques- 


THE  NEW  GOLF  33 

tion  the  master  stroke  in  the  game.  By  master 
stroke  I  mean  here,  not  the  stroke  calling  for  the 
greatest  skill  in  execution,  but  the  most  important 
stroke. 

I  must  give  an  illustration  of  this  that  I  have 
given  again  and  again,  but  it  is  so  striking  that  I 
am  always  prepared  to  risk  some  one  telling  me 
that  it  is  not  entirely  fresh.  We  may  take  72  as  a 
good  score  for  any  course.  If  we  allow  two  puts 
per  green  we  see  that  exactly  half  the  strokes  are 
played  by  the  putter,  leaving  the  other  half  to  be 
distributed  amongst  the  other  clubs  in  the  bag. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  more  than  half  the  strokes  in 
a  first  class  tournament  are  played  on  and  in  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  the  green.  Players  would 
do  well  to  get  this  idea  firmly  into  their  minds. 
It  might  make  them  give  the  short  game  generally 
some  portion  of  the  time  they  lavish  on  the  drive. 
Not  that  the  drive  is  unworthy  of  all  the  time  one 
can  spare  for  it,  but  there  is  such  a  thing  as  pro- 
portion, and  excessive  devotion  to  the  drive  must 
mean  a  badly  balanced  game.  Moreover  it  should 
always  be  remembered  that  the  most  awkward 
man  to  defeat  is  the  one  who  knows  his  mashie  and 
his  putter. 

The  ideal  action  for  a  put  is  that  of  the  pen- 
dulum of  a  clock,  presuming  of  course  that  the  line 
to  the  hole  is  parallel  to  the  face  of  the  clock.  It 


34  THE  NEW  GOLF 

is  impossible  to  give  any  better  notion  of  the  ideal 
put  than  this. 

In  practical  golf  one  does  not  often  see  it,  for  a 
variety  of  reasons  which  need  not  be  enumerated 
here. 

The  first  point  of  importance  that  the  pendulum 
teaches  us  is  that  it  has  one  bearing  on  which  it 
swings.  Our  put  will  swing  in  the  best  possible 
way  if  we  give  it  one  bearing.  To  do  this,  or  to 
get  as  near  to  it  as  is  practicable  without  using 
one  hand,  means  using  one  of  the  overlapping 
grips.  I  think  it  is  beyond  question  that  one  of 
these  grips,  probably  the  one  which  allows  the 
left  forefinger  to  overlap  the  right  little  finger,  is 
the  best. 

Either  this  or  the  Vardon  overlapping  grip 
will  be  found  the  best  for  putting.  Those  who 
are  unaccustomed  to  them  find  them  a  little 
peculiar  at  first,  but  when  one  has  felt  the  smooth 
flowing  action  of  putting  with  the  hands  brought 
together  in  this  manner,  one  is  not  very  likely  to 
return  to  the  old  two-handed  method. 

There  is  probably  more  variety  in  style  in  put- 
ting than  there  is  in  any  other  branch  of  the  game. 
This  to  a  very  great  extent  arises  from  the  fact 
that  there  is  much  ignorance  of  the  mechanics  of 
putting.  For  instance  there  is  for  each  player  one 
best  distance  at  which  to  stand  from  the  ball. 


THE  NEW  GOLF  35 

Many  players  quite  ignore  this.  One  should  ad- 
dress one's  put  so  that  a  plumb-line  from  the 
bridge  of  one 's  nose  would  hang  in  a  line  through 
the  center  of  the  ball.  This  it  seems  to  me  is  the 
cardinal  rule.  If  one  does  this  the  lines  from  the 
eye  to  the  ball,  from  the  eye  to  the  hole  and  from 
the  ball  to  the  hole  are  all  in  the  one  vertical  plane. 

If  one  addresses  the  ball  too  far  in  or  too  far 
out  it  means  that  one  has  three  different  lines  to 
look  down ;  with  a  ball  too  far  in  there  is  one  line 
from  the  eye  inwards  at  the  ball,  another  inwards 
from  the  eye  and  at  a  different  slant  to  the  hole 
and  then  the  line  of  run  to  the  hole  which  really 
does  not  " connect "  or  "run  into"  one's  eye  at 
all,  so  that  one  is  really  putting  over  a  line  other 
than  that  along  which  one  is  looking. 

There  are  so  many  putters  that  I  hesitate  to  say 
anything  about  any  particular  putter.  This  I 
may  say  however  and  that  is,  avoid  like  a  pesti- 
lence the  shallow-faced  putter.  They  are  a  de- 
lusion and  a  snare  for  about  ninety-five  per  cent, 
of  golfers  and  probably  half  a  delusion  for  quite 
eighty  per  cent,  of  the  remainder.  They  are  a 
most  dangerous  and  unreliable  club,  as  the  lesson 
of  Braid  and  Vardon's  putting  will  show,  although 
Braid,  so  far  as  I  know,  never  used  the  very  shal- 
low face. 

The  first  time  I  saw  Braid  putting  was  at  Wai- 


36  THE  NEW  GOLF 

ton-on-Heath  in  England.  He  was  trying  a  Vaile 
putter  for  me  as  I  wanted  his  opinion  of  it.  To 
my  surprise  he  came  down  on  the  ball  from  the 
back  and  finished  on  the  turf  an  inch  or  two  in 
front  of  where  it  had  been. 

In  those  days  I  was  little  known  in  the  golf 
world  and  Braid  had  already  several  open  cham- 
pionships to  his  credit.  Without  a  moment's 
hesitation  I  said,  "Do  you  always  put  like  that?" 
"Yes,"  replied  Braid  in  his  slow  methodical 
style,  "and  it's  the  best  way  too." 

By  this  time  I  had  remembered  those  champion- 
ships so  I  said  no  more,  but  I  thought  a  good  deal. 
Braid  at  that  time  was  considered  one  of  the 
most  unreliable  putters  amongst  the  professional 
players.  I  was  certain  that  his  method  of  putting 
was  bad,  but  I  just  "bottled  it  up"  and  kept  my 
opinion  for  future  use. 

The  next  time  I  saw  Braid  putting  was  a  year  or 
so  afterward  in  a  match  at  Mid  Surrey.  I  came 
on  the  match  suddenly,  just  as  Braid  came  onto 
the  green.  I  had  left  another  game  in  which  I 
had  no  further  interest.  Braid's  ball  was  about 
twenty  feet  from  the  hole.  He  studied  the  lie 
with  his  usual  thoroughness,  then  settled  himself 
down  to  his  ball  and  to  my  surprise  ran  it  down 
with  a  beautiful  easy  pendulum-like  swing,  play- 
ing the  only  proper  stroke  for  a  put. 


THE  NEW  GOLF  37 

I  am  of  course  speaking  generally  now.  There 
are  special  puts  that  require  certain  treatment 
peculiar  to  themselves,  one  in  fifty  perhaps.  For 
all  general  use  there  is  one  put,  the  king-put,  the 
put  that  rolls  the  ball  up  to  the  hole  in  just  the 
same  way  as  if  one  rolled  it  out  of  one's  hand, 
without  spin  or  cut  or  anything  except  an  honest 
roll. 

That  is  the  difference  between  James  Braid's 
old  style  of  putting,  when  he  was  very  bad,  and 
his  present,  when  he  is  very  good.  When  he  was 
using  his  old  bad  method  he  was  wont  to  say,  and 
write,  that  putters  were  born  and  not  made.  Now 
he  uses  himself  as  an  illustration  that  a  very  bad 
putter  who  is  using  bad  methods  may,  by  discard- 
ing those  methods,  become  a  very  good  putter. 

Vardon's  case  is  possibly  more  interesting  than 
Braid's.  Many  years  ago  there  was  not  much 
to  find  fault  with  in  Vardon's  putting  and  he  won 
several  open  championships.  Then  his  putting 
went  all  to  pieces  and  let  him  down  again  and 
again.  People  wrote  long  articles  about  it  and 
showed  how  it  was  due  to  illness,  and  analyzed 
the  psychology  of  it,  and  generally  did  all  those 
funny  things  that  journalists  do  to  or  about  peo- 
ple who  are  much  in  the  public  eye. 

I  happened  to  see  Vardon  playing  in  a  four- 
some at  Baltusrol.  His  putting  was  sinful.  I 


38  THE  NEW  GOLF 

had  heard  how  of  late  years  in  England  he  had 
been  missing  puts  of  eighteen  inches  and  two  feet, 
and  in  America  according  to  the  papers  he  was 
not  much  better.  Here  truly  was  a  mystery. 

After  what  I  saw  at  Baltusrol  I  had  no  doubt 
whatever  as  to  what  was  wrong  with  Vardon's 
putting.  He  was  using  a  very  shallow-faced  put- 
ter and  in  addition  to  that  was  hitting  or  stabbing 
his  puts  as  Braid  did  in  the  old,  bad  days  when 
he  never  knew  what  was  going  to  happen  on  a 
green. 

Vardon's  putter  was  so  shallow  in  the  face 
that  he  was  actually  able  sometimes  to  hit  the  ball 
beneath  the  centre  of  its  height,  particularly  when 
it  happened  to  be  perched  up  a  bit.  This  meant 
that  often  he  played  his  put  with  the  top  edge  of 
the  face  of  the  club ;  in  effect,  a  knife-edge  on  the 
pimples  of  the  golf  ball!  Truly  an  ideal  form  of 
putter  and  putting!  Time  and  again  I  saw  his 
ball  start  for  the  hole  with  a  little  crooked  jump 
which  was  all  he  had  any  right  to  expect. 

I  saw  him  miss  the  simplest  of  puts  so  close  to 
the  hole  that  he  could  have  blown  them  in.  His 
putter  had  got  him  down.  People  spoke  with  awe 
of  the  affection  of  his  wrist.  That  was  a  second- 
ary symptom.  The  root  of  the  disorder  was  in 
his  mind.  He  could  not  understand  why  his  put- 
ter would  not  work  for  him.  It  was  worse  the 


THE  NEW  GOLF  39 

nearer  he  got  to  the  hole,  for  there  the  stroke 
had  to  be  more  delicate  and  this  gave  the  uneven- 
ness  of  the  pimples  a  good  chance  to  play  up  with 
the  edge  of  the  putter.  The  further  he  was  from 
the  hole,  and  the  harder  he  could  hit,  the  better 
proportionately  was  his  putting,  for  then  the 
strength  of  the  stroke  kept  the  ball  to  its  direc- 
tion, but,  near  the  hole,  it  was  really  pitiful  to  see 
a  great  player  like  him  missing  things  a  six-year- 
old  boy  would  have  made  certain  of,  whereas  one 
could  see  that  Vardon  had  done  the  other  thing. 

I  felt  so  sorry  to  see  it  that  I  immediately 
wrote  an  article,  "Why  Vardon  Puts  Badly, "  set- 
ting out  what  I  have  stated  above,  and  saying  that 
when  Vardon  came  to  realize  the  truth  of  what  I 
said  and  gave  up  his  shallow-faced  putter,  stopped 
stabbing  his  puts,  and  followed  through  properly, 
he  would  become,  like  James  Braid,  a  great  put- 
ter. This  was  published  in  The  Golf  Magazine, 
of  New  York. 

I  saw  Mr.  Ouimet's  interesting  account  of  how 
Vardon  won  his  last  open  championship.  He  said 
he  used  an  old-fashioned  upright  faced  metal  put- 
ter, and  rusty  at  that,  and  that  he  had  quite  given 
up  stabbing.  Mr.  Ouimet  said  that  it  was  his 
splendid  work  on  the  greens  that  gave  him  his 
sixth  open  championship! 

This  is  a  wonderful  lesson  in  putting,  especially 


40  THE  NEW  GOLF 

for  those  who  are  fond  of  hitting  their  puts.  I 
have  never  known  a  consistently  good  putter  who 
hit  or  tapped  his  puts.  The  trouble  is  that  with 
this  hitting  method  of  putting  one  has  to  rely  too 
much  on  what,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  I  call 
muscular  memory.  In  the  other  method,  where 
one  swings  gently  and  easily  onto  the  ball  with  a 
good  follow-through,  one  can  regulate  the  length 
of  one's  put  with  considerable  accuracy  by  the 
length  of  one's  swing  back.  Moreover  the  start 
of  a  put  is  always  truer  with  the  swinging  put 
than  with  the  stabbed  put.  The  latter  has  a  great 
tendency  to  jump  the  first  few  inches  as  it  starts 
on  its  way  to  the  hole.  This  tendency  does  not 
exist  in  the  other  put  which  is  superior  in  every 
way  to  the  put  that  is  hit. 

A  putter  should  not  have  much  loft.  Some  peo- 
ple think  that  it  should  have  none.  Personally  I 
think  that  a  putter  should  have  just  so  much  loft 
as  will  enable  one  barely  to  see  the  face  of  the  club 
when  the  ball  is  addressed.  The  objection  to  loft 
in  a  putter  is  along  the  same  lines  as  the  objec- 
tion to  the  stabbed  put.  The  tendency  in  putting 
with  a  lofted  club  is  to  put  backspin  on  the  ball 
and  to  start  it  with  a  jump.  Neither  of  these 
things  is  desirable  in  putting.  A  putter  would 
be  better  without  any  loft  if  the  ball  would  start 
as  freely  as  it  does  off  a  club  with  a  little  loft. 


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THE  NEW  GOLF  41 

The  fact  is  nearly  all  players  hit  a  slightly  up- 
ward blow  in  putting.  It  is  probably  very  slight 
but  the  tendency  is  there  nevertheless.  A  per- 
fectly vertical  face  would  not  give  quite  such  a 
good  start  to  the  ball  as  does  the  slight  loft  rec- 
ommended. The  reason  for  this  is  that  the  club 
grips  the  ball  and  the  grass  also  has  a  hold  on  it. 
These  holds  endure  until  something  slips.  Nat- 
urally it  is  the  ball  that  slips  on  the  face  of  the 
club.  Then  it  starts  to  roll.  With  a  lofted  club 
of  the  kind  indicated  the  ball  is  started  towards 
the  hole  without  any  conflict  such  as  takes  place 
when  a  club  with  a  vertical  face  is  used. 

I  have  given  the  reformation  of  Braid  and  Var- 
don  as  a  useful  lesson  in  putting.  These  anec- 
dotes should  be  enough  to  prevent  anyone's  trying 
to  put  with  drag,  or  backspin,  which  was  practi- 
cally what  the  old  method  of  Braid  and  Vardon 
meant.  Drag  has  its  uses  in  billiards  and  mis- 
guided persons  have  repeatedly  tried  to  apply  the 
principles  of  billiards  to  strokes  on  the  putting 
green ;  and  in  various  articles  have  endeavored  to 
show  an  analogy  which  does  not  exist.  Golf  is  golf 
and  billiards  is  billiards.  If  a  player  tries  to 
teach  one  putting  by  the  principles  of  billiards  it  is 
to  be  feared  that  he  is  not  a  very  practical  guide  to 
follow. 

The  conditions  that  exist  on  a  billiard  table  and 


42  THE  NEW  GOLF 

on  a  putting  green  are  totally  dissimilar,  as  also  is 
the  nature  of  the  strokes.  I  am  aware  that  this 
seems  to  be  almost  a  work  of  supererogation  that 
I  am  performing,  but  it  is  amazing  to  find  quite  a 
number  of  people  spoiling  their  putting  by  trying 
to  put  drag  on  the  ball  because  they  know  that 
drag  is  used  at  billiards. 

Drag  is  always  dangerous  on  a  putting  green. 
I  have  already  given  various  reasons  for  that.  It 
is  quite  foolish  even  to  think  of  using  it  in  a  long 
put,  for  the  very  good  reason  that  a  golf  ball  will 
not  carry  drag  on  a  green  for  more  than  about  a 
yard.  The  comparative  lightness  of  the  ball  and 
the  excessive  roughness  of  the  green  and  the  ball 
as  compared  with  the  smoothness  of  the  billiard 
ball  and  table,  and  also  the  fact  that  in  billiards 
the  blow  is  concentrated  at  a  point  well  below  the 
center  of  the  ball's  mass,  go  to  show  the  futility 
of  comparisons  of  this  nature. 

There  is  one  case  in  which  drag  may  be  useful. 
That  is  in  short  puts  of  not  more  than  three  feet 
or  so.  In  such  a  put  the  ball  may  hold  its  drag 
against  the  friction  of  the  green  until  it  gets  to 
the  hole.  If  it  does  so  it  has  a  greater  chance  of 
" working  in"  than  the  topped  put,  which  often 
"rims"  or  "lips"  the  hole  and  runs  out  again. 
But  even  here  the  chances  are  that  the  plain  put 
is  the  safest  and  the  best.  Any  dragging,  stab- 


THE  NEW  GOLF  43 

bing  or  topping  of  puts  is  dangerous.  All  cutting, 
pulling  or  slicing  of  puts  is  to  be  avoided,  where 
possible,  and  it  is  possible  in  about  ninety-seven 
per  cent,  of  strokes  on  the  green.  There  is  one 
put  that  is  the  king  put,  the  plainest  of  them  all. 
One  who  can  use  this  properly  can  let  any  one  else 
have  all  the  others  with  an  easy  mind. 

Bather  than  waste  time  trying  to  learn  how  to 
put  with  drag  one  should  go  to  the  other  extreme 
and  try  to  put  with  top,  not  that  this  is  necessary, 
but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  very  few  good 
putters  do  use  it  to  advantage.  Most  of  them  get 
it  by  hitting  the  ball  as  the  club  is  coming  up,  that 
is  to  say,  the  ball  is  not  hit  until  after  the  club 
has  got  to  the  lowest  point  in  the  swing.  A  ball 
hit  thus  has  more  run  than  a  plainly  hit  put,  but 
although  such  a  stroke  is  superior  to  a  put  with 
drag,  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  recommend  it,  for 
I  do  not  consider  it  necessary.  Many  people  think 
that  to  get  top  in  a  put  the  ball  must  be  hit  above 
the  center.  This  of  course  is  not  so.  It  might 
indeed  be  got  by  hitting  the  ball  slightly  below  the 
center,  as  is  often  done  in  obtaining  top  spin  in 
tennis.  The  difference,  of  course,  between  the  put 
so  hit  and  the  tennis  ball  is  that  most  of  what  goes 
into  spin  in  tennis  simply  goes  into  extra  run 
when  the  ball  is  on  the  green.  Some  writers  refer 
to  putting  top  "spin"  on  a  put.  Needless  almost 


44  THE  NEW  GOLF 

to  say  this  is  not  practicable  for  the  reasons  al- 
ready indicated. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  false  teaching  of 
the  most  famous  professionals  and  the  leading 
writers  on  golf.  In  no  case  however  is  their 
teaching  so  pernicious  as  in  the  matter  of  putting. 
They,  practically  with  one  accord,  declare  that  put- 
ting cannot  be  taught,  that  one  must  be  born  with 
the  art  or  one  can  never  get  the  secret,  and  then 
leave  the  unfortunate  learner  or  golfer  to  despair. 
This  is  simply  wonderful.  We  have  seen  that  put- 
ting is  at  least  half  the  game  of  golf.  I  am  going 
to  put  before  you  the  statement  of  the  three  great- 
est, or  perhaps  I  should  say  the  greatest  three, 
professional  golfers  of  all  time,  to  the  effect  that 
not  only  are  they  unable  to  teach  the  most  im- 
portant half  of  golf,  but  that  it  cannot  be  taught ; 
then  I  am  going  to  tell  you  what  I  think  about 
it. 

Let  us  see  what  Braid,  Vardon  and  Taylor  have 
to  say  about  putting.  At  page  143  of  The  Com- 
plete Golfer  Vardon  says :  "For  the  proper  play- 
ing of  the  other  strokes  in  golf,  I  have  told  my 
readers  to  the  best  of  my  ability  how  they  should 
stand  and  where  they  should  put  their  feet.  But 
except  for  the  playing  of  particular  strokes,  which 
come  within  the  category  of  those  called  "fancy," 
I  have  no  similar  instruction  to  offer  in  the  matter 


THE  NEW  GOLF  45 

of  putting.     There  is  no  rule  and  there  is  no  best 
way. 

' '  The  fact  is  that  there  is  more  individuality  in 
putting  than  in  any  other  department  of  golf,  and 
it  is  absolutely  imperative  that  this  individuality 
should  be  allowed  to  have  its  way." 

Following  this  we  have  what  is  possibly  the  most 
remarkable  statement  ever  seriously  put  into  a 
book  on  golf.  Here  it  is :  "I  believe  seriously  that 
every  man  has  had  a  particular  kind  of  putting 
method  awarded  to  him  by  Nature,  and  when  he 
puts  exactly  in  this  way  he  will  do  well,  and  when 
he  departs  from  his  natural  system  he  will  miss  the 
long  ones  and  the  short  ones  too.  First  of  all  he 
has  to  find  out  this  particular  method  which  Na- 
ture has  assigned  for  his  use." 

Then  at  page  144  we  read  that  when  a  player  is 
putting  badly: — "it  is  all  because  he  is  just  that 
inch  or  two  removed  from  the  stance  which  Nature 
allotted  to  him  for  putting  purposes ;  but  he  does 
not  know  that,  and  consequently  everything  in  the 
world  except  the  true  cause  is  blamed  for  the  ex- 
traordinary things  he  does." 

This  certainly  is  ingenious,  but  it  is  not  very 
satisfactory.  It  does  seem  rather  unkind  of 
Mother  Nature,  after  having  "butted  into"  our 
golf  in  this  manner,  to  hide  what  it  is  she  intends 
us  to  do ! 


46  THE  NEW  GOLF 

We  must  be  patient,  however,  and  see  what 
James  Braid  has  to  say.  On  page  119  of  How  to 
Play  Golf  we  read:  "It  happens,  unfortunately, 
that  concerning  one  department  of  the  game  that 
will  cause  the  golfer  some  anxiety  from  time  to 
time,  and  often  more  when  he  is  experienced  than 
when  he  is  not,  neither  I  nor  any  other  player  can 
offer  any  words  of  instruction,  such  as  if  closely 
acted  upon  would  give  the  same  successful  results 
as  the  advice  tendered  under  other  heads  ought  to 
do.  This  is  in  regard  to  putting. " 

This  surely  is  becoming  more  wonderful  as  we 
go  on.  A  little  later  in  the  same  book  Braid  in- 
forms us:  "Beally  great  putters  are  probably 
born  and  not  made. ' 9 

This  certainly  is  not  encouraging,  but  let  us  have 
courage,  for  we  shall  require  it  to  withstand  the 
cumulative  effect  of  what  J.  H.  Taylor  has  to  add 
to  our  already  somewhat  discouraging  informa- 
tion. 

At  page  83  of  his  book,  Taylor  on  Golf,  in  the 
chapter  "Hints  on  Learning  the  Game,"  he  says: 
"Coming  back  to  the  subject  of  actual  instruction. 
After  a  fair  amount  of  proficiency  has  been  ac- 
quired in  the  use  of  the  cleek,  iron,  and  mashie, 
we  have  the  difficulty  of  the  putting  to  surmount. 
And  here  I  may  say  at  once  it  is  an  absolute  im- 
possibility to  teach  a  man  how  to  put." 


THE  NEW  GOLF  47 

This  is  going  from  bad  to  worse,  but  there  is  yet 
worse  to  follow.  Taylor  seems  so  determined  to 
impress  on  his  readers  that  the  teaching  of  putting 
is  a  hopeless  impossibility  that  he  proceeds  to  ram 
his  despairing  ideas  home  in  this  manner :  ' l  Even 
many  of  the  leading  professionals  are  weak  in  this 
department  of  the  game.  Do  you  think  they 
would  not  improve  themselves  in  this  particular 
stroke  were  such  a  thing  within  the  range  of  possi- 
bility? Certainly  they  would.  The  fact  is  that 
in  putting,  more  than  in  aught  else,  a  very  special 
aptitude  is  necessary.  A  good  eye  and  a  faculty 
for  gaging  distances  correctly  is  a  great  help — 
indeed,  quite  a  necessity — as  also  is  judgment  with 
regard  to  the  requisite  power  to  put  behind  the 
ball.  Unfortunately,  these  are  things  that  cannot 
be  taught ;  they  must  come  naturally  or  not  at  all. 

"  All  that  is  possible  for  the  instructor  to  do  is  to 
discover  what  kind  of  a  putting  style  his  pupil  is 
possessed  of,  offer  him  useful  hints,  and  his  ulti- 
mate measure  of  success  is  then  solely  in  his  own 
hands. 

"It  is  easy  to  tell  a  pupil  how  he  must  needs 
hold  his  clubs  in  driving  or  playing  an  iron  shot, 
but  in  putting  there  is  hardly  such  a  necessity. 
The  diversity  of  styles  accounts  for  this,  and  in 
this  particular  kind  of  stroke  a  man  must  be  con- 
tent to  rely  upon  his  own  adaptability  alone." 


48  THE  NEW  GOLF 

Taylor  has  much  more  of  this  kind  of  thing  to 
say,  but  it  is  all  so  false,  so  misleading,  so  very 
disheartening  that  I  shall  cut  out  a  great  deal  of 
it  and  give  just  one  final  quotation  in  this  particu- 
lar matter.  He  says:  " Putting,  in  short,  is  so 
different  to  any  other  branch  of  the  game  that  the 
good  putter  may  be  said  to  be  born,  not  made. ' ' 

Now  here  you  have  the  combined  wisdom  of 
Braid,  Taylor  and  Vardon  with  regard  to  half  the 
game  of  golf,  and  that,  as  Taylor  himself  says, 
the  more  important  part  of  it.  They,  at  time  of 
writing,  have  between  them  won  sixteen  open 
championships;  their  profession  is  to  teach  and 
play  golf.  They  absolutely  confess  that  they  can- 
not teach  the  more  important  half  of  it,  and  they 
do  not  stop  at  that,  for  they  say  that  one  cannot 
learn  it;  that  one  must  be  born  with  the  accom- 
plishment. To  all  of  which,  without  any  excuse  or 
apology,  I  say  "  Nonsense !" 

It  is  just  nonsense  of  the  most  pernicious  char- 
acter. The  same  journalist  who  was  hired  to  put 
Var don's  instruction  into  writing  had  the  job  for 
Braid's  book.  I  am  afraid  this  accounts  for  their 
strong  family  likeness  and  much  of  the  nonsense 
that  is  now  tacked  on  to  the  famous  names  of  the 
two  great  players.  Possibly  Taylor's  assistant 
was  influenced  in  some  way  by  these  weird  ideas. 
If  this  is  not  so  it  is  indeed  hard  to  see  how  so 


THE  NEW  GOLF  49 

shrewd  a  man  and  so  good  a  golfer  as  J.  H.  Taylor 
could  allow  such  futile  stuff  to  be  associated  with 
his  name. 

One  will  see  at  once  the  importance  of  the  mat- 
ter I  have  quoted.  I  am  producing,  one  may  say, 
almost  the  authority  of  the  world  to  prove  that  I 
cannot  teach  you  putting,  that  nobody  can,  that 
indeed  it  cannot  be  taught.  If  perchance  I  should 
fail  surely  I  have  soft  ground  on  which  to  fall ;  but 
I  shall  not  fail.  I  brush  aside  with  contempt  and 
indignation  such  hopeless  nonsense  and  tell  my 
readers  that  putting  is  surely  the  easiest  thing  in 
golf  to  learn,  provided  only  that  one  has  the  pa- 
tience to  carry  out  proper  instructions  and  to  prac- 
tise. That  is  the  secret  of  good  putting — prac- 
tise, and  practise,  and  practise. 

Above  everything  forget  about  Mother  Nature 
having  given  you  a  special  putting  style.  That 
is  simply  journalistic  stuff  which  Vardon  proba- 
bly never  even  read.  Nature  no  more  attends  to 
such  trifling  individual  matters  than  she  concerned 
herself  with  giving  me  a  special  style  for  my  niblick 
shot  or  my  push  stroke. 

Forget  all  this  nonsense.  Know  that  you  may 
be  a  good,  an  absolutely  first  class,  putter  if  you 
have  two  wooden  legs  and  have  lost  your  left  arm, 
though  I  am  prepared  to  wager  that  these  trifling 
deficiencies  would  interfere  a  good  deal  with 


50  THE  NEW  GOLF 

Mother  Nature 's  plans  for  your  style  on  the  green. 

Remember  that  the  first  thing  in  putting  is  not 
any  question  of  your  style,  your  individuality,  or 
how  you  look  while  you  are  doing  it.  Cease  to 
think  of  yourself  at  all;  or,  if  you  cannot  avoid 
this  somewhat  popular  amusement,  try  to  think  of 
yourself  as  an  old  grandfather's  clock  and  your 
hands  as  the  bearing  whereon  the  pendulum  is 
swinging.  Know  that  if  you  reproduce,  as  nearly 
as  you  can,  the  swing  of  that  pendulum  on  to  the 
ball  that  in  the  end  the  result  will  be  good,  for  your 
mechanical  efforts  will  have  been  right;  and  it  is 
these  that  count  in  putting  and  not  wandering 
thoughts  of  failure,  putting  the  blame  on  Mother 
Nature,  of  style  and  so  on.  And  know  that  if 
Mother  Nature  gave  you  an  individuality  worth 
having,  you  will  graft  that  on  to  the  proper  foun- 
dation of  the  stroke,  which  is,  in  the  first  place,  cor- 
rect mechanics.  Know  also  that,  so  far  as  your 
individuality  is  subservient  to  and  harmonious 
with  the  correct  mechanical  production  of  your 
stroke,  it  is  a  right  and  proper  thing  to  let  it  edge 
in  and  assist  to  make  your  form  on  the  green;  but 
remember  above  everything  that  the  person  who 
thinks  of  form  or  style  except  such  as  comes  from 
playing  his  strokes  well  and  truly  is  no  guide  for 
you  or  me. 

It  may  seem  that  I  deal  with  this  matter  in  a 


THE  NEW  GOLF  51 

somewhat  irreverent  manner.  It  is  indeed  hard 
to  refrain  from  being  serious  and  severe.  It  is 
almost  impossible  to  say  how  much  despair,  gloom 
and  despondency  has  been  spread  throughout  the 
world  of  golf  by  the  hopeless  message  of  the  great 
triumvirate  on  the  subject  of  putting.  Golf,  as 
most  of  us  know,  is  now  of  almost  more  importance 
than  religion  and  politics  together.  Can  one  who 
knows  the  truth  sit  calmly  by  and  see  untruth 
needlessly  and  carelessly  circulated  to  the  detri- 
ment of  a  great  game  without  raising  one's  voice 
in  protest  and  flashing  forth  the  message  of  hope 
and  confidence  and  truth  which  must  take  the  place 
of  the  woful  tale  of  the  great  three — a  tale  to 
which  they  would  not  now  subscribe  their  names. 

Taylor,  Braid  and  Vardon  speak  of  wonderful 
"individuality"  in  putting.  If  they  said  "con- 
tortions ' '  it  might  be  nearer  the  truth.  It  is  very 
strange,  but  nevertheless  true,  that  a  great  num- 
ber of  human  beings  find  it  extremely  hard  to  be 
natural  on  a  putting  green  when  in  possession  of  a 
putter  and  about  to  hit  the  ball. 

The  trouble  is  that  the  grand  tale  of  the  mys- 
tery merchants  has  spread.  The  "gigantic  con- 
spiracy," as  James  Sherlock,  the  famous  English 
golfer,  calls  it,  is  in  full  operation.  Every  one 
who  approaches  golf  is  filled  up  with  tales  similar 
to  the  quotations  that  I  have  given  from  the  books 


52  THE  NEW  GOLF 

alleged  to  be  by  Braid,  Vardon  and  Taylor.  That 
unfortunately  is  what  I  have  to  combat.  It  is 
truly  some  handicap  to  start  out  to  tell  simple 
honest  folk  the  simple  honest  truth  with  such  a 
mountain  of  prepared  and  authoritative  falsehood 
to  knock  down,  but  fortunately  I  have  some  very 
strong  corroborative  testimony  in  support  of  my 
argument. 

I  say  "fortunately"  because  it  amounts  to  this. 
If  you  are  going  to  get  any  good  from  this  book 
you  must  believe  the  obvious  outstanding  truth 
and  reason  of  what  I  say  and  discard  the  nonsense 
associated  with  the  greatest  names  in  the  history 
of  the  game. 

Now,  in  connection  with  putting  (the  more  im- 
portant half  of  the  game,  remember),  some  people 
might  think  that  I  ask  too  much  when  I  claim  to 
have  my  teaching  accepted  without  demur  against 
such  men  as  the  triumvirate.  It  does  not  seem  so 
to  me.  Names  mean  nothing  to  me  unless  they  are 
associated  with  the  truth.  Fortunately,  since 
most  of  this  foolishness  was  published  James 
Braid  has  recanted.  In  his  book,  Advanced  Golf, 
at  page  144,  Chapter  X,  dealing  with  putting 
strokes,  he  says:  "Thus  practically  any  man  has 
it  in  his  power  to  become  a  reasonably  good  putter, 
and  to  effect  a  considerable  improvement  in  his 
game  as  the  result." 


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THE  NEW  GOLF  53 

Here  is  the  right  note.  This  is  the  message  of 
hope  to  the  golfer  and  the  beginner.  Braid  here 
says  that  " practically  every  man"  can  "become  a 
reasonably  good  putter."  I  go  still  further.  I 
should  say  instead  of  "reasonably  good"  "very 
good."  Think  what  this  changed  message  means 
to  the  world  of  golf.  If  I  had  nothing  else  to  con- 
vey to  golfers,  this  one  lesson  of  hope  and  trust 
and  confidence  on  the  green,  and  my  showing  that 
it  is  justified,  would  be  worth  while. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Braid,  Taylor  and 
Vardon  are  practically  agreed  that  good  or  great 
putters  are  born  and  not  made.  The  statement  is, 
of  course,  so  ludicrous  that  one  would  if  the  words 
gave  one  any  chance  to  do  so  accept  them  in  a  fig- 
urative sense.  Taylor  goes  further  and  says  that 
the  best  evidence  that  one  cannot  learn  putting  is 
the  bad  putting  of  some  professionals.  He  argues 
that  the  fact  that  they  cannot  improve  is  proof  that 
putting  cannot  be  learned. 

Fortunately  for  the  people  who  cannot  put  we 
have  the  two  remarkable  cases  of  Braid  and  Var- 
don, two  great  golfers  who  could  not  put  when  they 
were  using  wrong  methods,  but  who  became  good 
putters  directly  they  abandoned  their  faulty  execu- 
tion. 

Let  us  see  what  Braid  has  to  say  of  his  own  sal- 
vation. On  page  146  of  Advanced  Golf  he  says: 


54  THE  NEW  GOLF 

U0f  course  they  say  that  good  putters  are  born 
and  not  made,  and  it  is  certainly  true  that  some 
of  the  finest  putters  we  know  seem  to  come  by 
their  wonderful  skill  as  a  gift,  and  nowadays  put 
with  an  ease  and  confidence  that  suggest  some  kind 
of  inspiration.  But  it  is  also  the  fact  that  a  man 
who  was  not  a  born  putter,  and  whose  putting  all 
through  his  golfing  youth  was  of  the  most  moderate 
quality,  may  by  study  and  practise  make  himself  a 
putter  who  need  fear  nobody  on  any  putting 
green. " 

Let  me  pause  here,  ye  despondent  ones,  to  repeat 
the  words  "who  need  fear  nobody  on  any  putting 
green."  This,  now,  is  going  almost  further  than 
I  do. 

Braid  proceeds:  "I  may  suggest  that  I  have 
proved  this  in  my  own  case.  Until  comparatively 
recently  there  is  no  doubt  that  I  was  really  a  poor 
putter.  Long  after  I  was  a  scratch  player  I  lost 
more  matches  through  bad  putting  than  anything 
else.  I  realized  that  putting  was  the  thing  that 
stood  in  the  way  of  further  improvement,  and  I  did 
my  best  to  improve  it,  so  that  to-day  my  critics  are 
kind  enough  to  say  that  there  is  not  very  much 
wanting  in  my  play  on  the  putting  green,  while  I 
know  that  it  was  an  important  factor  in  gaining 
for  me  my  recent  championship. 

"Sol  may  be  allowed  the  privilege  of  indicating 


THE  NEW  GOLF  55 

the  path  along  which  improvement  in  this  depart- 
ment of  the  game  may  best  be  effected ;  and  what  I 
have  to  say  at  the  beginning  is,  that  putting  is  es- 
sentially a  thing  for  the  closest  mathematical  and 
other  reckoning.  It  is  a  game  of  calculations  pure 
and  simple,  a  matter  for  the  most  careful  analysis 
and  thought. " 

It  would  scarcely  be  possible  for  any  one  to  eat 
his  own  words  more  fully  and  effectually  than  this. 
We  may,  I  think,  take  it,  as  this  is  in  Braid 's  most 
important  work,  Advanced  Golf,  and  as  this  is,  so 
far  as  I  am  aware  his  last  word  on  golf,  that  we 
now  have  his  mature  thought  on  this  most  impor- 
tant matter.  The  wonderful  thing  is  that  although 
Braid  recants  in  this  whole-hearted  manner  and 
gives  himself  as  an  instance  of  a  very  bad  putter 
who  worked  out  his  own  salvation,  indeed  goes  so 
far  as  to  say  he  may  "be  allowed  the  privilege  of 
indicating  the  path  along  which  improvement  in 
this  department  of  the  game  may  best  be  effected, " 
he  gives  us  not  the  slightest  clue  as  to  how  his 
reformation  was  effected.  That  would  indeed  have 
been  a  pity  unless  I  had  happened  to  see  him  put- 
ting in  his  old  bad  days.  I  have  already  told  what 
it  was  that  saved  James  Braid  from  remaining  a 
bad  and  unreliable  putter. 

There  is  another  brilliant  player  who  suffers 
from  the  same  fault,  or  perhaps  I  should  say,  who 


56  THE  NEW  GOLF 

did  when  I  saw  him  play,  for  it  is  years  now  since 
I  saw  him  tap  a  put.  That  is  George  Duncan. 
Like  many  who  tap  their  puts,  Duncan  on  his  day 
is  a  wizard ;  but  there  is  another  side  always  to  the 
tale  of  the  man  who  will  not  follow  through  in  put- 
ting; and  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  in  times  of 
severe  nervous  tension,  as  when  a  man  is  laboring 
under  a  great  match  strain,  the  tapping  or  stabbing 
of  puts  must  of  necessity  be  a  more  dangerous 
game  than  leaving  all  that  is  possible  to  the  club 
as  one  does  in  the  true  method  of  putting. 

I  have  spoken  against  putting  with  drag,  espe- 
cially for  long  puts.  It  is  obvious  that  a  golf  ball 
at  rest  sinks  into  the  turf  for  quite  an  appreciable 
space.  The  area  of  contact  between  turf  and  ball 
is  a  considerable  part  of  the  surface  of  the  sphere 
and  not  a  point  as  it  would  be  on  a  glass  table. 
It  stands  to  reason  that  if  this  ball  is  rolled  slowly 
toward  the  hole  it  will  depress  the  sward  approxi- 
mately to  the  same  extent  all  the  way  to  the  hole. 
In  other  words  its  groove  is  holding  it  to  the  line 
it  started  on.  Now  if  the  ball  is  started  by  any 
kind  of  a  blow  that  makes  it  jump  from  the  green 
one  immediately  introduces  into  the  roll  of  the  ball 
a  new  element  of  risk,  for  it  is  impossible  to  say 
what  it  will  meet  when  it  comes  down  and  how  it 
will  meet  it,  for,  unless  the  put  is  a  very  strong  one, 
stalks  of  grass,  twigs  and  pimples  have  more  than 


THE  NEW  GOLF  57 

a  theoretical  effect  on  the  run  of  a  golf  ball.  For 
this  arid  many  other  reasons,  some  of  which  I  have 
given,  there  is  no  put  superior  to  the  plain  put. 

In  putting,  the  feet  should  be  kept  fairly  close 
together  and  the  ball  addressed  so  that  it  is  about 
midway  between  the  feet,  if  anything  slightly  for- 
ward of  the  midway  line.  The  best  criterion,  how- 
ever, for  the  right  place  in  which  to  find  the  ball  in 
relation  to  the  feet  is :  Does  a  line  from  the  bridge 
of  the  nose  fall  plumb  onto  it?  It  is  quite  pos- 
sible to  dogmatize  too  much  as  to  how  one  shall 
stand  when  one  is  putting.  Much  depends  on 
one's  physical  conformation.  Photographs  give 
one  a  good  idea  of  the  methods  employed  by  the 
leading  players  and  they  are  a  very  valuable  means 
of  instruction.  Examine  not  one  or  fifty,  but  may- 
hap hundreds,  then  again  and  again,  about  all. 
points  on  which  you  require  enlightenment.  They 
will  infallibly  assist  you  in  time. 

Generally  speaking,  in  putting  one  stands  with 
the  right  foot  almost  at  a  right  angle  to  the  line  of 
run  to  the  hole  and  the  left  at  about  an  angle  of 
forty-five  degrees  to  the  right,  but  here  again  I 
shall  not  attempt  to  dictate.  What  I  say  is  good — 
generally.  It  should  suit  you.  It  may  not  do  so. 
Vary  it  slightly  until  it  does.  It  is  not  in  the 
minor  matters  that  we  must  be  strict.  It  is  in 
fundamentals  that  we  are  adamant. 


58  THE  NEW  GOLF 

In  all  putting  one  should  so  far  as  possible  con- 
fine the  movement  to  hands  and  wrists  until  after 
impact.  In  the  follow  through,  the  hands  and 
wrists  and  forearms  must  go  out  after  the  ball; 
otherwise  there  is  a  great  chance  of  hooking — I  do 
not  mean  pulling — one's  put.  In  approach  puts 
one  cannot  rigidly  adhere  to  the  rule  about  con- 
fining the  action  of  putting  to  the  hands  and 
wrists ;  and  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  less  of  it 
in  short  puts  in  practise  than  there  is  in  theory; 
but  it  is  the  right  idea  to  inculcate,  for  the  more  we 
reduce  the  wrists  to  one  bearing  (as  in  the  pendu- 
lum) the  greater  delicacy  and  accuracy  shall  we 
get. 

Standing  with  the  feet  together  is  quite  impor- 
tant in  many  cases.  It  is  not  essential.  If  one  is 
putting  well  enough  to  do  all  one  wants,  one  need 
not  alter  one's  style.  If,  however,  one  is  swaying, 
one  should  at  once  put  the  feet  more  closely  to- 
gether, as  it  makes  swaying  almost  impossible. 

It  is  of  the  greatest  importance  to  think  of  noth- 
ing but  getting  the  ball  into  the  hole  when  one  is 
putting.  There  is,  one  may  say,  judging  from  the 
amount  I  write  of  putting,  a  great  deal  to  remem- 
ber. There  really  is  not.  I  write  in  great  meas- 
ure of  the  things  that  one  must  know  but  must  for- 
get, or  at  most  use  sub-consciously,  when  one  is 
playing.  Above  everything  be  natural.  Never 


THE  NEW  GOLF  59 

fall  into  a  cramped  position.  Never  worry  for  a 
moment  about  which  hand  is  doing  it  or  when  the 
pressure  of  a  certain  finger  comes  in.  All  this 
kind  of  thing  is  nonsense  and  calculated  to  retard 
your  development  instead  of  to  assist  it. 

If,  however,  the  result  of  your  stroke  is  not  what 
it  should  have  been,  I  have  no  objection  to  your 
holding  an  inquiry  into  it  provided  you  do  not  go 
into  it  on  the  course  and  delay  and  annoy  people 
who  are  following  you. 

I  have  said  that  there  is,  for  all  practical  pur- 
poses, one  put.  That  statement  will  hold  good; 
for  even  when  one  is  stymied,  in  the  great  majority 
of  cases  one  can  get  some  assistance  from  the 
green  and  so  get  into  the  hole  around  the  obstruct- 
ing ball  without  playing  other  than  a  plain  put. 

There  are,  however,  cases  in  which  one  must  cut 
or  pull  round  the  obstructing  ball.  These  are 
strokes  which  are  better  taught  on  the  green  than 
in  a  book.  One  must  have  a  club  suitable  for 
them  and  one  must  know  the  green  on  which  one  is 
playing.  A  simple  cut,  or  " sliced"  put,  will  run 
round  a  stymie  with  a  lovely  curl  from  one  side  of 
the  hole.  Try  it  from  the  other  side  and  the  result 
of  the  stroke  is  quite  different.  The  "nap"  of  the 
green,  otherwise  the  way  the  cutters  have  laid  the 
grass,  is  entirely  opposite.  It  is  impossible  to 
speak  positively  about  the  effect  of  cut  puts  or 


60  THE  NEW  GOLF 

pulled  puts  on  a  putting  green;  for  we  are  not, 
as  in  billiards,  dealing  practically  with  known 
quantities.  No  two  greens  are  alike.  No  two 
"runs"  to  a  hole  have  the  same  characteristics 
when  it  conies  to  a  question  of  such  nicety  as  intro- 
ducing spin ;  so  one  must  be  content  in  these  mat- 
ters to  get  one's  experience  mainly  by  practise, 
and,  if  one  is  keen  enough,  the  study  of  books 
which  go  fully  into  such  matters. 

It  must  not  be  thought  because  I  pass  them  by 
like  this  that  I  think  these  matters  unworthy  of 
study.  If  a  man  really  loves  the  game  he  should 
know  them.  He  may  not  want  them  five  times  in 
a  lifetime,  for  generally  there  is  another  and  an 
easier  way  out  of  the  difficulty,  but  sometimes 
there  comes  the  position  which  demands  one  shot 
and  one  shot  only.  That  is  the  time  your  true 
golfer  wants  to  have  it  in  his  repertory. 

Many  books  give  much  advice  about  putting  up- 
hill and  down-hill,  across  hill,  and  everywhere,  ex- 
cept perhaps  in  the  subway.  Their  authors  tell 
you  about  getting  great  results  by  using  the  toe 
and  the  heel  and  other  funny  bits  of  the  putter. 
There  is  just  one  part  of  the  putter  to  use  for  put- 
ting, and  that  is  the  middle  of  its  face.  That  may 
not  be  geometrically  correct.  Here  is  another  in- 
struction that  is  probably  less  so,  but  still  to  you 
expressive  and  explicit.  Use  only  the  center  of 


THE  NEW  GOLF  61 

your  club-face.  Don't  think  of  toeing  or  heeling 
anything.  You  will  never  be  so  good  a  golfer  that 
you  can  do  anything  off  the  toe  or  the  heel  of  your 
putter  that  you  cannot  do  equally  well,  or  better, 
with  the  center  of  your  club. 

In  putting  one  must  rivet  one's  attention  on  the 
ball  and  keep  it  there  until  one  has  played  one's 
stroke.  Starting  to  practise  near  the  hole,  one  has 
not  the  same  desire  to  relax  one's  attention  and  to 
follow  the  run  of  the  ball  as  one  has  if  one  starts 
far  away  from  the  hole  or  by  driving.  In  these 
cases  there  is  always  a  great  tendency  on  the  part 
of  the  beginner  to  look  up.  This  means  moving 
the  head  and  unsettling  the  stroke.  It  is  a  fault 
of  the  worst  description  that  must  be  most  per- 
sistently fought. 

No  advice  about  putting  would  be  complete  with- 
out a  reference  to  the  golfer's  outstanding  sin  on 
the  green.  One  should  make  up  one 's  mind  always 
to  "give  the  hole  a  chance;"  in  other  words,  one 
should  always  put  so  strongly  that,  unless  one 
goes  into  the  hole,  one's  ball  either  stays  opposite 
the  hole  or  rolls  past  it. 

We  see  frequently  in  books  advice  to  search  out 
some  particular  blade  of  grass  on  the  way  to  the 
hole  and  to  put  over  it.  For  sheer  futility  this 
always  seems  to  me  to  be  entitled  to  a  very  high 
position.  There  is  a  wonderful  family  resem- 


62  THE  NEW  GOLF 

blance  in  blades  of  grass  even  when  they  have  their 
heads  on.  When  they  are  cut  across  somewhere 
about  the  abdomen  they,  to  me  at  least,  cease  to 
have  any  very  distinguishing  characteristics  such 
as  would  enable  one  to  pick  out  a  prominent  look- 
ing fellow  say  ten  yards — or  feet — away. 

We  may  disregard  such  advice  as  this  and  put 
for  a  point  from  one  foot  to  three  feet  behind  or 
beyond  the  hole,  according  to  the  length  of  the  put 
we  have  to  make.  If  we  could  get  into  this  habit 
it  would  be  much  better  for  us  and  we  should  not 
have  so  many  aggravating  short  puts. 

Here  is  something  which  Vardon  has  to  say  of 
putting  that  is  of  value:  " There  should  be  no 
sharp  hit  and  no  jerk  in  the  swing,  which  should 
have  the  even,  gentle  motion  of  a  pendulum.  In 
the  backward  swing,  the  length  of  which,  as  in  all 
other  strokes  in  golf,  is  regulated  by  the  distance 
it  is  desired  to  make  the  ball  travel,  the  head  of 
the  putter  should  be  kept  exactly  in  the  line  of  the 
put.  Accuracy  will  be  impossible  if  it  is  brought 
round  at  all.  There  should  be  a  short  follow 
through  after  impact,  varying,  of  course,  accord- 
ing to  the  length  of  the  put.  iln  the  case  of  a  long 
one,  the  club  will  go  through  much  farther,  and 
then  the  arms  would  naturally  be  more  extended.'7 

This  is  good  practical  advice  as  regards  the 
golf  in  it,  but  as  a  matter  of  simple  mechanics  it 


THE  NEW  GOLF  63 

will  not  square  with  Vardon 's  previous  instruc- 
tions. 

Vardon  tells  us  that  the  put  is  the  only  pure 
wrist  stroke  in  golf.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  is 
not  such  a  stroke  in  golf  as  a  "pure  wrist "  shot, 
unless  one  could  call  a  six-inch  put  so.  I  am  re- 
ferring to  this  here,  not  as  a  quibble,  but  as  a 
matter  of  practical  golf  of  considerable  import- 
ance. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  in  golf  generally, 
and  in  putting  particularly,  that  the  player  should 
have  a  perfectly  clear  idea  what  it  is  that  he  is  try- 
ing to  do.  This  condition  of  mind  is  conspicuously 
absent  in  the  play  of  the  great  majority.  In  quite 
the  largest  number  of  cases  of  bad  strokes  the 
fault  lies  not  with  the  eyes  or  the  limbs,  but  with 
the  general  in  command,  the  brain,  and  even  it 
does  not  fail  on  account  of  any  inherent  defect,  but 
simply  because  it  had  never  been  trained  to  give 
the  requisite  order. 

That  being  so,  let  us  note  carefully  what  Vardon 
says  about  taking  the  head  of  the  putter  back 
"exactly  in  the  line  of  the  put"  produced  through 
the  ball.  This  would  be  impossible  if  the  put  were, 
as  Vardon  says  it  is,  a  pure  wrist  stroke.  It  will 
be  apparent  that  if  one  attempts  to  play  any  put 
with  any  ordinary  putter  as  a  pure  wrist  stroke 
that  the  head  of  the  club  will  begin  to  curve  away 


64  THE  NEW  GOLF 

from  the  ball  inward  to  the  player  the  moment  it 
leaves  the  ball.  The  only  put  possible  as  a  pure 
wrist  stroke,  that  is  playing  it  without  moving  the 
wrists  from  their  position,  is  a  put  played  by  a 
putter  with  a  perfectly  vertical  shaft,  and  we  know 
that  these  are  not  used. 

The  ordinary  putter  shaft,  as  is  well  known, 
lies  in  toward  the  player  at  a  considerable  angle. 
The  only  way  to  carry  out  Vardon's  instructions 
in  putting,  and  to  keep  the  head  of  the  putter 
"exactly  in  the  line  of  the  put,"  is  to  allow  one's 
wrists  in  putting  to  travel  with  the  club.  This 
one  must  do  on  the  backward  swing  as  well  as  in 
the  follow-through.  Any  attempt  to  put  in  any 
other  way  must  result  in  bad  form,  that  bad  form 
which  comes  from  the  neglect  of  obvious  mechani- 
cal necessities,  and  therefore  the  worst  kind  of  bad 
form. 

Vardon  has  some  other  advice  to  give  that  is 
worth  noting,  but  not  following.  He  says:  "In 
the  follow-through  the  putter  should  be  kept  well 
down,  the  bottom  edge  scraping  the  edge  of  the 
grass  for  some  inches. "  I  am  quoting  this  be- 
cause here  again  we  see  the  impossibility,  with  any 
ordinary  putter,  of  making  the  follow-through 
without  letting  the  wrists  go,  and  moreover  the 
instructions  for  "scraping  the  edge  of  the  grass 
for  some  inches"  mean  playing  the  put  with  the 


(1)   Cocking  up  the  Toe  (2)  Cocking  up  the  Heel 


(3)   Turning  the  Face  of  (4)  Cocking  up  the  Face 

the   Club    forward 

ERRORS  IN  PUTTING 


THE  NEW  GOLF  65 

descending  blow,  the  old,  faulty  method  which 
Vardon  has  fortunately  abandoned. 

In  those  days  Vardon  argued  in  favor  of  the 
stabbed  put.  He  said:  "It  is  easy  to  understand 
how  much  more  this  course  of  procedure  will  tend 
towards  the  accuracy  and  delicacy  of  the  stroke 
than  the  reverse  method,  in  which  the  blade  of  the 
putter  would  be  cocked  up  as  soon  as  the  ball  had 
left  it." 

Is  not  this  strange  tuition?  What  is  more 
natural  than  that  the  face  of  the  club  should  be 
cocked  up  as  soon  as  the  ball  has  left  it.  Let  us 
affix  our  ideal  putter  head  to  the  pendulum  of  the 
clock  and  let  it  play  the  put.  We  shall  of  course 
see  that  the  face  of  the  putter  begins  to  cock  up 
the  instant  the  ball  has  left  it.  This  is  as  it  should 
be,  as  indeed  it  is,  in  the  vast  majority  of  all  golf 
strokes,  excluding  of  course  those  which  come  with- 
in the  class  known  as  "push"  strokes. 

Any  one  who  is  trying  to  put  with  cut  must  re- 
member what  I  have  said  about  trying  to  do  any- 
thing to  the  ball  during  impact.  Vardon  says: 
"Swing  just  a  trifle  away  from  the  straight  line 
outwards,  and  the  moment  you  come  back  on  to  the 
ball  draw  the  club  sharply  across  it." 

There  must  be  no  attempt  in  putting  to  do  any- 
thing "the  moment  you  come  back  on  to  the  ball" 
that  was  not  an  essential  part  of  the  arc  of  the 


66  THE  NEW  GOLF 

swing  as  determined  by  the  player  the  moment  it 
was  started.  The  fact  that  the  club  encounters 
the  ball  is  an  incident  in  the  swing,  but  the  arc  of 
that  swing  having  been  once  settled  cannot  be 
readjusted  successfully  nor  altered  in  any  way  as 
a  matter  of  good  and  consistent  golf.  This  idea 
of  doing  something  to  the  ball  while  the  club  is 
adhering  to  it  must  be  absolutely  abandoned. 

Much  might  be  written  about  putting  on  undulat- 
ing greens,  but  here  I  am  sure  the  green  is  better 
than  all  the  books  ever  written.  There  is,  however, 
one  broad  general  piece  of  advice  that  I  shall  give 
to  players  when  allowing  for  the  run  of  the  ball  in 
putting  across  a  ridge  or  ridges  or  on  the  side  of  a 
hill,  and  that  is  ' '  Always  allow  plenty. ' ' 

The  golfer's  cardinal  sin  on  the  green  is  being 
short,  not  ' '  giving  the  hole  a  chance. "  It  is  near- 
ly, if  not  quite,  as  bad  to  be  narrow,  for  in  this 
case  you  throw  away  any  chance  you  may  have 
of  holing  out,  and  on  a  down-hill  run  once  the  ball 
gets  away  from  the  hole  it  often  means  a  long  up 
hill  journey. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  MASHIE 

WE  have  now  finished  with  the  putter  for  the 
present.  Naturally  we  look  for  the  next  stroke. 
It  is  the  shortest  stroke  that  we  have  to  play  with 
a  mashie.  That  is  a  stymie  near  the  hole. 

Quite  frequently,  on  account  of  the  defective 
construction  of  the  mashie,  a  niblick  or  a  mashie 
niblick  is  a  better  club  for  this  shot  than  an  ordi- 
nary mashie.  For  the  most  delicate  work  on  the 
green  it  is  however  obvious  that  these  clubs  are  too 
heavy.  The  fact  is  that  the  modern  golfer  has 
not  in  his  bag  a  club  really  suitable  for  playing 
short  stymies.  A  special  stymie  mashie  is  re- 
quired. It  should  have  about  the  loft  of  the  nib- 
lick, the  same  angle  of  sole  with  the  face  so  as  to 
give  the  sharp  edge  to  go  in  under  the  ball,  about 
the  same  weight  as  an  ordinary  mashie,  if  anything 
a  little  lighter,  and  no  marking  whatever  on  the 
face.  In  addition  to  this  the  sole  should  start 
curving  up  a  very  short  distance  from  the  face. 

The  ordinary  mashie  has  a  sole  that  is  too  broad. 
It  is  so  broad  that  frequently  when  one  turns  its 

67 


68  THE  NEW  GOLF 

face  back  a  little  to  get  under  the  ball  the  back 
edge  grounds  first  and  so,  cocking  up  the  front 
edge,  robs  the  stroke  of  any  delicacy.  If  the  sole 
is  run  off  at  an  angle  like  a  niblick  and  then  quickly 
curved  upwards  it  improves  the  club  considerably. 
Also  it  must  be  remembered  that  many  cut  shots, 
especially  with  back  spin,  are  played  with  the 
mashie.  The  amount  of  spin  on  the  ball  is  regula- 
ted by  the  pace  at  which  the  club  passes  it.  An 
unduly  broad  sole  on  the  club  cuts  off  the  pace 
directly  the  club  touches  the  earth  much  more  than 
the  curved  sole  does. 

I  had  one  particularly  serviceable  little  mashie 
of  this  type  once.  Stymies  had  no  terror  for  it. 
I  showed  it  to  George  Duncan  and  dwelt  particu- 
larly on  the  importance  of  the  curved  sole.  Dun- 
can told  me  that  he  always  had  the  back  edge  of 
his  mashies  rounded  off. 

I  have  said  that  a  stymie  mashie  should  have 
the  face  perfectly  smooth.  Unless  I  had  found 
this  out  in  the  most  practical  way  I  should  have 
doubted  it.  One  can  get  a  more  sudden  rise  with 
a  smooth  faced  club  than  one  can  with  any  club 
that  takes  a  grip  of  the  ball  whether  it  be  fey  lines, 
dots,  holes  or  otherwise, 

My  light  mashie  taught  me  this.  It  had  a  per- 
fectly smooth  face.  I  had  a  shot  with  it  that  I 
often  set  up  as  an  exercise  for  people  who  thought 


THE  NEW  GOLF  69 

they  could  use  their  mashies  on  a  stymie.  I  put 
one  ball  half  an  inch  from  the  hole  and  the  other 
six  and  a  half  inches  away  from  it — a  dead  stymie. 
Sherlock  says  it  is  the  hardest  stymie  in  the  game. 
Certainly  it  is  not  the  easiest.  With  my  light 
smooth-faced  mashie  with  the  curved  sole  I  could 
get  this  shot  three  or  four  times  in  succession. 
One  day  I  took  it  into  my  head  that  perhaps  I  could 
play  the  stroke  better  if  I  got  a  better  grip  of  the 
ball  with  the  club.  I  had  the  face  of  the  club 
covered  with  a  thin  film  of  soft  solder.  It  ruined 
the  delicacy  of  the  shot.  With  a  smooth-faced 
club  the  ball  starts  running  up  the  face  directly 
it  strikes  the  club.  With  a  marked  club  it  grips 
more  and  stays  lower.  That  is  why  a  smooth- 
faced club  is  better  for  a  sudden  rise.  I  had  never 
thought  of  it  in  this  way  before  but  probably  the 
same  holds  good  of  the  niblick ;  in  fact,  it  is  almost 
a  certainty  that  it  does. 

I  obtained  a  fine  grip  with  the  soft  metal  facing. 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  this  idea  is  superior  to 
rust  and  it  certainly  looks  much  better.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  some  better  medium  of  con- 
tact is  wanted  between  the  iron  clubs  and  the  ball 
than  now  exists.  The  chalk  for  the  cue  is  missing. 
This  soft  metal  may  supply  it. 

We  must  now  consider  the  best  way  to  play 
the  stymie  that  I  have  set  up.  This  is  by  means 


70  THE  NEW  GOLF 

of  a  stroke  that  I  introduced  into  golf  myself.  I 
had  known  it  for  many  years,  but  I  first  published 
it  in  1908.  George  Duncan  was  the  first  profes- 
sional to  whom  I  showed  it. 

What  Duncan  cannot  do  with  a  mashie  is  hardly 
worth  troubling  about.  The  enforced  idleness  of 
a  wet  Saturday  afternoon  led  to  my  "putting  one 
over"  on  him.  The  rain  was  coming  down  in 
tanks.  I  was  filling  in  time  knocking  a  couple  of 
balls  about  the  mat  in  Duncan's  shop  at  the  Hanger 
Hill  Club.  I  started  practising  stymies.  Pres- 
ently I  said,  "How  would  you  play  this  stymie, 
George 1 ' ' 

"Just  in  the  usual  way,"  said  Duncan. 

I  set  it  up  for  him  then,  and  he  played  it  "just 
in  the  usual  way." 

"They  all  play  it  like  that,  don't  they?"  I  said. 

"Yes,"  replied  Duncan. 

"Then  it  isn't  the  best  way,"  I  replied;  "I'll 
show  you  a  better. ' ' 

Duncan's  face  moved  a  trifle,  but  he  smothered 
the  smile,  and  I  showed  him  the  stroke.  He  was 
on  to  it  like  a  cat  after  a  mouse.  As  he  said  after- 
wards, it  isn't  every  day  that  any  one  teaches  him 
a  new  stroke  in  golf.  He  got  it  after  a  few  tries, 
and  then  he  could  hardly  wait  until  the  rain 
stopped  to  get  out  on  to  the  green. 

The  essential  difference  between  my  stroke  and 


THE  NEW  GOLF  71 

the  old  stroke  is  that  the  regulation  stymie  stroke 
is,  like  every  stroke  in  golf,  an  arc.  My  stroke  is 
a  perfectly  straight  stroke.  It  goes  back  parallel 
with  the  green.  This  is  all  the  difference,  but  it 
means  everything  in  delicacy,  in  accuracy,  in  quick 
rise  and  sudden  stop. 

It  is  almost  incredible,  yet  is  the  fact,  that  many 
people  said  that  this  was  a  foul  stroke  when  I 
published  it  first  in  The  Daily  Mail,  London. 
Others  were  equally  sure  that  there  was  nothing 
new  about  it,  that  in  fact  it  had  been  played  since 
golf  was  golf ! 

The  difficulty  in  teaching  this  stroke  to  any  one 
lies  in  the  fact  that  from  time  immemorial,  even 
in  the  shortest  put,  the  moment  the  club  came 
away  from  the  ball  it  began  to  ascend  in  a  curve. 
One  may,  and  often  does,  keep  the  club  low;  but 
the  curve,  or  arc,  is  always  in  the  stroke.  In  my 
stroke  there  is  no  curve.  Bight  throughout  the 
stroke,  swing  back,  swing  forward  and  follow 
through  there  is  no  curve.  The  line  of  travel  of 
the  club 's  head  is  as  nearly  as  may  be  the  same  as 
the  green. 

There  must  be  no  idea  of  hitting  the  ball  or  of 
taking  turf.  The  endeavor  must  be  to  insert  the 
front  edge  of  the  mashie  sharply  between  the  ball 
and  the  green.  The  result  of  this  is  that  far  less 
force  goes  into  propulsion  and  much  more  into 


72  THE  NEW  GOLF 

elevation  than  in  the  ordinary  stymie  shot  where 
the  ball  is  frequently  hit  as  the  club  is  coming  up. 
It  seems  curious  to  many  people,  but  it  is  sound 
golf  nevertheless,  to  warn  one  against  trying  to 
get  the  ball  up  by  hitting  up.  The  great  secret  of 
getting  a  ball  up  well  is  to  hit  down  enough.  So 
in  this  delicate  shot  the  straight  travel  of  the  club 
head  is  much  better  than  the  curved  movement  of 
the  ordinary  stroke. 

There  is  a  marked  peculiarity  about  this  stroke 
which  should  have  been  enough  to  show  any  one 
that  it  was  very  different  from  the  regulation 
stymie  stroke.  On  account  of  the  blow  not  being 
an  arc  the  hands  are  forced  to  move  parallel  with 
the  head  of  the  club  as  the  stroke  is  being  played. 

It  is  very  hard  to  wean  golfers  temporarily  from 
the  arc,  or  ordinary  golf  stroke.  In  teaching  this 
new  stroke  to  quite  good  golfers  I  have  put  down 
a  match  a  few  inches  behind  the  ball  and  the  same 
in  front  and  said,  i  i  Now  go  back  in  a  straight  line 
to  that  match,  so  that  the  middle  of  the  sole  of  your 
club  is  over  it,  and  then  go  smartly  forward  to  the 
other  match  without  raising  the  club.  ' '  Even  then 
I  have  had  them  raise  the  club  on  the  ball,  and 
come  down  for  the  finish,  but  that  of  course  had 
spoiled  the  stroke. 

George  Duncan,  after  full  experiment  with  this 
stroke,  refused  to  be  photographed  for  Modern 


THE  NEW  GOLF  73 

Golf,  playing  the  ordinary  short  stymie  stroke, 
for  he  asserted  that  my  stroke  had  put  it  out  of 
date. 

One  of  my  critics  in  England  stated  that  a  full 
description  of  this  stroke  could  be  found  in  any 
book  on  golf.  In  Advanced  Golf,  in  describing 
how  to  pitch  over  the  obstructing  ball,  James  Braid 
says :  ' i  ...  it  is  just  an  ordinary  chip  up,  with  a 
clean  and  quick  rise,  the  fact  being  remembered 
that  the  green  must  not  be  damaged.  To  spare 
the  latter  the  swing  back  should  be  low  down  and 
near  to  the  surface,  which  will  check  the  tendency 
to  dig.  The  thing  that  will  ensure  the  success  of 
the  shot,  so  far  as  the  quick  and  clean  rise  is  con- 
cerned— and  often  enough  success  depends  entire- 
ly upon  that — is  the  follow-through.  Generally, 
if  the  club  is  taken  through  easily  and  cleanly,  all 
will  be  well. " 

Could  anything  be  more  unlike  the  description  I 
give  of  my  stroke  than  that?  With  my  stroke  one 
cannot  damage  the  green,  for  one  moves  in  a  line 
with  it ;  also  the  hands  follow  the  head  of  the  club 
back  and  forth,  which  they  do  not  in  an  ordinary 
shot;  while  the  thing  that  "will  ensure  the  suc- 
cess "  of  my  stroke  is  not  the  follow-through  but 
playing  the  first  part  of  the  stroke,  up  to  and  in- 
cluding impact,  in  the  manner  I  mention.  It  is 
curious  to  see  here  again  the  persistent  error  about 


74  THE  NEW  GOLF 

the  follow-through  affecting  what  has  gone  before. 
It  is  curious  also  to  see  no  reference  to  the  im- 
portance of  the  low  follow-through,  which  is  not, 
be  it  remembered,  important  in  itself,  but  merely 
so  as  an  indication  that  what  went  before  was  cor- 
rectly done,  and  for  its  effect  before  the  stroke 
was  played — if  one  may  put  it  so — in  determining 
the  arc  in  which  the  club  head  was  to  travel,  since 
the  player  must  have  decided  that  he  would  play 
his  stroke  in  such  a  way  that  his  follow-through 
would  be  low. 

In  this  stymie  stroke — I  speak  now  of  the  one 
Braid  is  describing — the  club  may  be  "  taken 
though  easily  and  cleanly "  every  time,  and  yet  the 
stroke  may  be  an  utter  failure.  Much  more  de- 
pends on  the  attention  that  is  paid  to  elevation 
and  keeping  the  club  down  so  as  to  give  the  loft  a 
chance  to  fulfil  its  function,  which  is  to  lift  the  ball. 

Many  players,  even  quite  experienced  golfers, 
forget  that  their  duty  in  the  vast  majority  of 
strokes  is  to  hit  the  ball  and  that  the  loft  will 
do  the  rest.  This  is  not  of  course  true  of  some 
strokes,  but  it  certainly  is  of  the  vast  majority. 
More  strokes  are  ruined  on  the  golf  course  by 
hitting  upward,  by  neglecting  to  trust  the  loft,  than 
by  anything  else. 

It  is  not  altogether  curious  that  this  is  so.  In 
nearly  every  other  implement  with  which  man  hits 


THE  NEW  GOLF  75 

a  ball  into  the  air  he  makes  his  own  loft  by  the 
manner  in  which  he  turns  his  striking  implement 
on  to  the  ball.  I  believe  that  golf  is  the  only 
game  of  any  consequence  wherein  the  player 
strikes  a  direct  blow  towards  the  desired  goal  and 
leaves  the  matter  of  trajectory  to  be  automatically 
settled  for  him  by  the  angle  at  which  the  face  of 
his  implement  is  set.  It  is  not  therefore  surpris- 
ing that  this  fault  of  hitting  upwards  takes  some 
fighting.  Women  are  particularly  prone  to  this 
error.  In  many  cases  it  would  be  a  good  idea  to 
put,  three  inches  in  front  of  the  ball,  a  small  white 
peg  three  quarters  of  an  inch  or  so  in  height 
and  to  tell  one 's  pupil  that  she  must  not  only  play 
a  good  drive  or  cleek  shot  but  that  she  must  also 
go  on  and  cut  down  the  peg  in  front  of  the  ball 
in  the  follow-through. 

In  marked  contrast  to  the  manner  in  which 
ignorant  persons  received  the  new  stroke  in  Eng- 
land was  its  reception  by  America's  leading  player, 
Mr.  Jerome  D.  Travers. 

I  was  talking  to  one  of  the  directors  of  a  large 
sporting  goods  house  in  New  York  one  very  hot 
day,  when  Mr.  Travers  came  in,  and  he  introduced 
him  to  me. 

>     ' '  Jerry, ' '  said  he, ' i  Mr.  Vaile  will  talk  the  theory 
of  golf  with  you  by  the  day,  hour  and  minute. ' ' 

"Not  on  your  —  life,  especially  on  a  day  like 


76  THE  NEW  GOLF 

this,"  I  said;  "but,"  I  added,  "I'll  do  something 
better  than  that.  I'll  take  Mr.  Travers  out  to 
your  putting  green  and  teach  him  a  stroke  he 
doesn't  know." 

"That  sounds  all  right,"  said  Mr.  Travers,  and 
without  any  delay  we  went  out  to  the  putting  green, 
where  I  set  Mr.  Travers  up  the  wicked  little  stymie 
I  have  mentioned. 

"Can  you  get  in  there?"  I  asked  him. 

"No,  I'm  pretty  sure  I  cannot,"  he  said;  and 
off  an  unyielding  floor  it  is  not  too  easy. 

"If  I  do  it  three  times  running,  do  you  think 
it's  a  shot  worth  learning!" 

"Certainly  I  do"  said  the  open  champion. 

I  dropped  my  ball  in  three  times  and  the  famous 
little  golfer  took  the  club  and  got  right  down  to 
work.  He  was  not  bothering  to  decry  the  stroke, 
to  call  it  foul  or  old  because  he  didn't  know  it.  He 
saw  me  do  it.  He  knew  it  was  useful  He  wasted 
no  time.  He  learned  it.  This  incident  is  typical 
of  the  American's  mental  outlook.  He  is  always 
ready  to  take  up  anything  new  and  good.  He  may, 
like  our  Missouri  friend,  want  to  be  shown ;  but  if 
one  tells  him  something  he  does  not  know  he  does 
not  take  it  as  prima  facie  evidence  that  one  is  a 
fool,  a  theorist,  a  faddist  or  a  revolutionist.  In 
England  this  is  a  very  common  error.  The  men- 
tality of  the  ordinary  Englishman,  in  England,  is 


The  Right  Loft  for  a 
Putter 

More  than  this  is  dan- 
gerous 


The  Shallow  Putter 
Note  the  danger  of  its 
getting  under  the  Ball. 


The  edge  of  the  shallow- 
faced  Putter  is  liable 
to  get  under  the  Ball 


The  Putter  of  proper 
Depth  does  not  get 
under  the  Ball 


COMPARISON  OF  PUTTERS 


THE  NEW  GOLF  77 

not  very  alert.  Small  wonder,  for  it  is  never 
stimulated.  The  consequence  is  that  he  views  any 
new  thought  with  suspicion,  for  it  is  something 
that  may  tire,  nay,  even  bore,  him. 

I  have  shortly  referred  to  the  merits  of  this 
particular  stymie  shot.  I  have  I  think  dwelt  suffi- 
ciently on  its  remarkably  quick  rise  which  is  so 
often  "of  the  very  essence  of  the  contract/'  as 
the  lawyers  say.  There  is  another  point  that  in 
a  stymie  is  often  equally  important  and  that 
is  in  checking  the  run  of  the  ball,  after  it  has 
pitched. 

I  have  shown  how  in  this  stroke  more  force  goes 
into  elevation  and  less  into  propulsion  than  in  the 
ordinary  stymie  stroke.  That  in  itself  tends  to 
give  the  ball  a  deader  drop  with  less  run  than  the 
ordinary  stroke  has;  but  in  addition  to  this  we 
must  remember  that  in  this  stroke  the  blow  is 
struck  by  a  club  that  gets  in  under  the  ball  as  far 
as  is  practicable  and  hits  it  just  as  low  down  as 
it  is  possible  to  hit  a  golf  ball  in  practical  golf. 
It  is  the  nearest  thing  to  a  scientific  jump  shot  at 
billiards  that  can  be  put  onto  a  putting  green.  The 
consequence  is  that  the  ball  takes  more  true  back- 
spin  than  in  any  other  stymie  stroke  that  is  played, 
and  it  is  therefore  possible  to  jump  some  stymies 
and  yet  to  control  the  run  of  the  ball  in  a  manner 
that  would  be  impractical  were  one  to  use  the 


78  THE  NEW  GOLF 

stroke  of  which  Braid  himself  says  that: — "  .  .  . 
it  is  just  an  ordinary  chip  up." 

The  stroke  has  another  quality  to  recommend 
it.  I  have  found  that  its  direction  for  strokes  of 
a  much  greater  length  than  we  have  so  far  been 
considering  is  remarkable.  So  remarkable  is  it 
that  I  was  forced  to  look  into  it  to  see  why  it 
should  possess  this  quality  in  so  marked  a  degree. 
I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  because  of  the 
straight  swing  back  and  the  straight  follow- 
through.  This,  as  we  all  know,  is  what  everybody 
lays  down  as  the  great  rule  in  putting.  As  we  also 
know  it  is  what  nearly  every  one  neglects.  From 
the  nature  of  this  stroke  it  is  almost  impossible 
to  avoid  carrying  out  the  rule  both  with  regard 
to  the  swing  back  and  the  follow-through. 

This  stroke  may  also  be  used  as  a  chip  shot. 
If  one  has  a  bad  bit  of  green  to  dodge  one  can 
rely  on  going  as  straight  through  the  air  as  on  the 
green  when  once  one  has  got  command  of  the 
stroke,  and  as  the  cut  is  pure  back-cut  it  has  no 
tendency  to  curl  the  ball  away  from  the  hole  when 
it  lands. 

The  same  stroke  may  of  course  be  used  in  a 
stymie  with  "cut,"  if  from  the  nature  of  the  shot 
it  looks  as  if  an  extra  quick  rise  is  wanted  and 
can  be  obtained.  I  may  say,  however,  that  I  have 


THE  NEW  GOLF  79 

never  yet  seen  the  stymie,  either  as  regards  prox- 
imity of  the  obstruction  to  one 's  ball  or  the  cramp- 
ing of  the  line  of  flight  by  nearness  of  the  obstruct- 
ing ball  to  the  hole,  that  could  not  be  negotiated 
by  the  straight  shot  with  what  back-spin  came  to 
it  from  playing  the  stroke  naturally. 

It  will  sometimes  happen  that  one  is  a  long 
way  from  the  hole  and  is  stymied  by  a  ball  that 
is,  comparatively  speaking,  near  the  hole — is,  in 
fact,  so  placed  that  if  one  succeeded  in  pitching 
over  it  one  could  not  possibly  control  the  run  of 
the  ball  sufficiently  to  give  one  a  chance  to  make 
the  hole.  In  these  cases  if  one  can  cut  or  pull 
one  may  use  these  strokes.  If  the  ground  shows 
any  sign  of  giving  assistance  it  is  much  better  to 
try  to  use  it  to  get  enough  roll  towards  the  hole 
to  enable  one  to  make  a  plain  put  instead  of  putting 
any  work  on  one 's  ball.  If  none  of  these  courses 
is  open  to  one,  there  is  another  that  I  have  used 
with  success,  yet  which  cannot  be  recommended  so 
long  as  one  has  any  other  chance.  The  last  resort 
is  to  play  my  stymie  shot  with  a  good  high  pitch 
right  up  near  the  obstructing  ball  and  to  jump 
it  on  the  bound,  continuing  on  to  the  hole.  That 
the  shot  is  practical  you  will  soon  find  by  the  num- 
ber of  times  you  hit  the  other  ball  when  once  you 
start  practising.  After  a  while  you  will  overcome 


8o  THE  NEW  GOLF 

this  attraction  and  then  you  will  find  that  you  get 
quite  as  much  success  as  you  have  any  right  to 
expect  with  a  shot  of  this  kind. 

We  have  now  to  deal  with  the  ordinary  chip 
shot.  This  as  you  know  starts  at  the  edge  of  the 
green.  It  seems  ohvious  that  you  ought  to  slide 
into  it  almost  without  knowing  it.  Your  last  ap- 
proach put  was  only  a  foot  shorter  than  this  shot 
you  are  trying  now.  What  is  the  difference? 
You  will  stand  up  much  straighter,  which  is  natural 
as  your  club  is  a  little  longer.  Your  stance  is 
more  open.  Your  right  foot  is  nearly  at  a  right 
angle  to  the  line  to  the  hole,  and  your  left  foot 
points  more  towards  the  hole;  in  fact,  your  feet 
are  nearly,  but  not  quite,  at  a  right  angle.  Your 
knees  are  almost  stiff;  that  is  to  say,  they  are 
barely  flexed,  and  both  your  feet  are,  and  during 
the  stroke,  remain,  in  full  contact  with  the  earth. 

The  ball  is  taken  opposite  the  right  heel.  The 
weight  is  fairly  equally  divided  with  an  inclination 
to  have  slightly  more  on  the  right  foot  than  on 
the  left.  As  in  the  put  the  feet  are  kept  close 
together.  The  swing  back  comes  mainly  from  the 
forearms.  One  must  guard  against  imagining 
the  wrists  into  this  stroke.  Strive  above  every- 
thing else  to  hit  t^ie  ball  so  that  the  front  edge  of 
the  club  is  at  a  right  angle  to  the  line  of  run  to 
the  hole  and  finish  your  stroke  with  it  in  that 


THE  NEW  GOLF  81 

position.  It  will  seem  as  though  this  makes  one 
play  a  constrained  finish.  It  will  cause  one,  in 
the  finish,  to  point  one's  left  elbow  at  the  hole. 
If  these  two  items  are  kept  in  mind  one's  direc- 
tion will  never  be  very  bad. 

One  could  fill  reams  of  paper  instructing  one's 
readers  in  the  various  kinds  of  mashie  strokes, 
cut  shots  and  run  up  strokes  and  how  to  swerve 
and  run  and  so  forth.  These  are  all  very  useful 
and  much  that  is  quite  fascinating  may  no  doubt 
be  written  about  them,  and  in  its  right  place  I 
hope  to  have  something  to  say  about  the  general 
principles  of  the  flight  of  the  ball  and  how  it  is 
influenced  by  spin  and  other  factors.  I  am  satis- 
fied in  the  meantime  to  leave  this  subject,  for  I  am 
convinced,  more  now  than  I  was  in  1909,  of  the  im- 
portance of  back-spin  in  golf,  even  as  top-spin 
reigns  in  tennis.  I  have  already  in  some  small  way 
referred  to  it  and  it  will  recur  again  and  again 
in  such  a  manner  that  I  hope  my  readers,  with- 
out being  wearied  by  what  really  is  a  somewhat 
abstruse  matter,  will  get  all  the  practical  and  in- 
teresting portion  of  the  subject  that  has  a  direct 
bearing  on  their  game,  as  well  as  directions  as  to 
the  best  way  to  produce  back-spin. 

One  of  the  greatest  secrets  of  success,  with  the 
mashie  particularly,  although  this  applies  to  all 
iron  clubs,  is  to  keep  the  swing  as  upright  as  pos- 


82  THE  NEW  GOLF 

sible;  that  is,  to  have  the  head  of  the  club  as 
nearly  in  the  plane  of  the  ball's  flight  for  as  great 
a  time  as  possible  while  the  stroke  is  being  played 
and  in  the  follow-through. 

There  is  one  thing  I  must  impress  on  my  readers 
and  that  is  that  it  is  not  necessarily  a  sign  that 
one  is  master  of  the  mashie  because  one  carves 
bigger  divots  than  any  other  member  of  the  club. 
In  the  old  days  the  divot  was  of  more  importance 
than  the  stroke !  Hit  your  ball  as  cleanly  as  you 
can  whenever  the  lie  will  allow  you  to  do  so.  What 
you  do  to  the  turf  should  always  be  merely  an 
incident  of  the  stroke.  I  condemned  this  practise 
in  Modern  Golf,  pointing  out  that  agriculture  does 
not  rightly  form  any  part  of  the  great  game  of  golf 
and  should  not  be  unnecessarily  obtruded  therein. 
The  greatest  masters  of  the  mashie  are  much  more 
merciful  to  the  turf  now  than  they  were  formerly. 
Of  course  there  will  be  shots  when  you  must  dig 
your  ball  out.  Then  it  is  no  question  of  half 
measures;  but,  generally  speaking,  don't  hit  the 
earth  unless  you  need  to  do  so.  Vardon  has  al- 
tered his  method  a  good  deal  in  this  respect  of 
recent  years. 


CHAPTEE  VI 

THE  IKON 

THE  iron  is  used  when  the  shot  is  beyond  the 
range  of  the  mashie.  About  eighty  yards  is  all 
that  one  should,  generally  speaking,  ask  the  mashie 
to  do.  Above  that  one  should  use  the  iron  until 
something  of  greater  capacity  is  required. 

It  is  always  well  to  try  to  get  one's  results  from 
a  club  that  has  the  work  well  within  its  power  in 
preference  to  forcing  another  club  to  its  limit.  It 
stands  to  reason  that  one  keeps  greater  command 
in  this  way. 

The  same  rule  holds  good  as  between  the  iron 
and  the  cleek.  A  half  or  three-quarter  shot  with 
the  cleek  is  frequently  much  better  than  a  full  shot 
with  the  iron. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  importance  in  all 
iron  play  of  standing  well  over  the  club.  Of  course 
the  nature  of  the  clubs  themselves  in  some  measure 
compels  this ;  but  it  is  a  point  of  great  importance, 
and  as  a  player  begins  to  understand  his  clubs  a 
little  better  he  should  gradually  start  trying  to 


84  THE  NEW  GOLF 

consider  the  finer  points  in  their  make  and  their 
adaptability  to  his  style  and  build.  As  a  general 
rule  the  nearer  one  gets  to  the  hole  the  more  one 
must  stand  over  one's  club  until  when  one  has 
arrived  on  the  green  one  is  found  addressing  the 
ball  so  that  a  plumb  line  from  the  eye  will  drop 
right  on  to  the  ball.  This  in  itself  is  a  strong 
argument  in  favor  of  keeping  in  as  close  to  one's 
work  as  practicable;  for  the  greater  the  demand 
for  accuracy  becomes,  the  more  one's  desire  to  get 
one 's  eye  into  the  line  is  seen. 

The  stance  for  the  ordinary  iron  shot  is  not  quite 
so  open  as  for  the  mashie.  I  have  in  the  chapter 
on  gripping  and  soling  referred  specially  to  the 
importance  of  allowing  the  club  to  take  its  position 
naturally  so  that  it  lies  on  its  sole  from  heel  to  toe 
and  is  neither  cocked  up  on  the  heel  nor  put  down 
by  the  toe.  These  are  two  grave  errors.  Possibly 
the  worse  is  to  be  down  by  the  to.e.  If  one  takes 
turf  too  heavily  by  the  heel  one  is  more  nearly  in  a 
line  where  the  power  is  developed,  to  wit,  by  the 
shaft,  but  if  one  happens  to  put  the  toe  of  one 's  club 
into  the  earth  during  a  stroke,  that  is  the  end  of  it. 
The  leverage  at  the  end  of  the  head  being  so  much 
greater  causes  the  shaft  to  turn  in  the  hand,  thus 
laying  the  face  of  the  club  back  and  irretrievably 
ruining  the  stroke. 

The  nature  of  the  swing  in  using  the  iron  must 


THE  NEW  GOLF  85 

be  learned  from  carefully  studying  the  photo- 
graphs and  the  explanation  of  the  golf  stroke. 
The  regulation  of  one's  distance  is  obtained  by 
the  length  of  the  swing  back.  To  put  it  in  another 
way,  when  you  want  a  shorter  distance  chop  off 
some  of  your  swing.  This  would  apply  in  the 
case  of  the  ordinary  tuition  where  the  drive  is 
taught  first.  In  this  case  you  are  being  asked  to 
add  to  your  length  of  swing  and  you  must  do  so  in 
all  ways  in  conformity  with  the  general  principles 
laid  down  in  my  analysis  of  the  golf  stroke. 

In  speaking  of  the  iron  shot  Vardon  says  in  The 
Complete  Golfer:  "When  a  few  extra  yards  are 
wanted,  put  an  additional  inch  or  two  on  to  the 
backward  swing,  and  so  on;  but  never,  however 
you  may  satisfy  yourself  with  excuses  that  you 
are  doing  a  wise  and  proper  thing,  attempt  to 
force  the  pace  at  which  the  club  is  traveling  in 
the  downward  swing,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  at- 
tempt to  check  it.  I  believe  in  the  club  being 
brought  down  fairly  quickly  in  the  case  of  all  iron 
shots;  but  it  should  be  the  natural  speed  that 
comes  as  the  result  of  the  speed  and  length  of  the 
upward  swing,  and  the  gain  in  it  should  be  even 
and  continuous  throughout." 

I  am  afraid  that  this  idea  of  even  and  continu- 
ous acceleration  of  speed  would  if  followed  out 
upset  the  iron  play  of  most  people,  especially  if  a 


86  THE  NEW  GOLF 

consideration  of  the  upward  swing  is  also  allowed 
to  obtrude  itself  into  the  downward  swing.  I  can- 
not say  too  often  that  whether  it  is  with  the  iron 
or  any  other  club  there  is  only  one  thing  to  think 
of  when  one  has  arrived  at  the  top  of  the  swing 
and  that  is  of  hitting  the  ball.  Absolutely  nothing 
else  must  be  on  one's  mind.  Nothing  else  is  prac- 
tical golf.  I  should  not  even  excuse  one  for  think- 
ing of  my  directions !  When  at  play  the  less  one 
thinks  of  the  book  the  better  for  one.  That  is 
how  too  many  people  abuse  books.  They  stand  in 
front  of  a  little  ball  that  they  want  to  hit.  Some 
one  has  written  a  chapter  of  ten  thousand  words 
on  that  one  little  thing  and  how  to  hit  it  with  a 
driver.  Of  what  use  is  that  chapter  at  that  time. 
Almost  none !  Part  of  it  may  be  actively  useful. 
Part  of  it  may  be  sub-consciously  used.  Much 
more  of  it  may  be  used  in  the  study  that  night  after 
dinner,  and  with  a  high-ball  and  a  cigar  to  tone 
it  down,  to  explain  what  was  wrong  with  the 
stroke;  and  some  of  that  session  will  be  actively 
useful  or  sub-consciously  used  next  time  you  go 
on  to  the  links ;  and  so  on  and  so  on  until  one  gets 
too  old  or  too  wise — or  dies. 

There  is  something  else  that  Vardon  has  to  say 
about  the  swing  in  the  iron  shot  that  seems  to  me 
to  merit  consideration.  This  is  it:  "Try,  there- 
fore, always  to  swing  back  at  the  same  rate,  and  to 


THE  NEW  GOLF  87 

come  on  to  the  ball  naturally  and  easily  after- 
wards. Of  course,  in  accordance  with  the  simple 
laws  of  gravity  and  applied  force,  the  farther  back 
you  swing  the  faster  will  your  club  be  traveling 
when  it  reaches  the  ball,  and  the  harder  will  be 
the  hit.  Therefore  if  the  golfer  will  learn  by  ex- 
perience exactly  how  far  back  he  should  swing 
with  a  certain  club  in  order  to  get  a  certain  dis- 
tance, and  will  teach  himself  to  swing  to  just  the 
right  length  and  with  always  the  same  amount  of 
force  applied,  the  rest  is  in  the  hands  of  Nature, 
and  can  be  depended  upon  with  far  more  certainty 
than  anything  which  the  wayward  hands  and  head 
of  the  golfer  can  accomplish.  This  is  a  very  sim- 
ple and  obvious  truth,  but  it  is  one  of  the  main 
principles  of  golf,  and  one  that  is  far  too  often 
neglected. ' ' 

What  is  "simple  and  obvious "  to  one  person 
is  a  deep  and  hidden  mystery  to  another.  I  think 
that  this  quotation  is  somewhat  involved  and  mis- 
leading. Gravity  and  Nature  with  a  capital  N 
should  be  left  out  of  the  calculation  in  every  way. 

Here  we  only  have  to  consider  golf  and  art  em- 
ployed to  assist  us  in  using  our  natural  advan- 
tages, or  disadvantages;  but  the  moment  we  be- 
gin to  cumber  our  minds  with  such  things  as 
gravity  and  a  personified  edition  of  ordinary 
human  nature  we  are  splitting  up  our  attention 


88  THE  NEW  GOLF 

and  intention  more  than  is  good  for  the  iron 
shot. 

First,  as  to  gravity,  forget  it.  One  can  use  the 
good  old  pendulum  stunt  to  illustrate  the  put  be- 
cause it  is  a  perfectly  sound  example.  I  have  seen 
Braid  putting  at  such  a  rate  that  any  respectable 
grandfather 's  clock  could  give  him  six  inches  start 
and  then  beat  him  to  the  ball.  As  a  matter  of 
purely  practical  golf  there  was  even  then  much 
more  of  applied  muscular  force  and  command  than 
gravity  in  the  stroke,  but  gravity  is  useful  as  an 
example  in  putting  and  can  be  shown  to  develop 
power  enough  to  do  what  is  wanted  on  the  green ; 
but  to  talk  of  it  as  being  in  any  way  a  considerable 
factor  in  the  iron  stroke  is  merely  to  make  words 
and  cloud  the  issue.  If  any  one  thinks  otherwise 
swing  an  iron  on  a  bearing  and  let  gravity  do  its 
worst  to  a  golf  ball  by  lifting  the  club  to  the  top 
of  the  swing  and  letting  it  fall  against  the  ball. 
Gravity  is  a  well  established  and  venerable  insti- 
tution but  the  pace  of  a  modern  iron  shot  renders 
it  absolutely  unnecessary  for  us  to  give  it  any 
place  whatever  in  our  consideration  of  this  stroke. 

This  is  not  merely  captious  criticism.  It  has  a 
basis  of  very  important  practical  golf  behind  it. 
If  one  permits  any  idea  whatever  of  gravity  tak- 
ing any  part  of  the  command  in  the  head  of  the 
club,  it  stands  to  reason  that  the  influence  of  that 


THE  NEW  GOLF  89 

thought  must  be  in  the  direction  of  making  the  iron 
stroke  a  sweep,  which  it  most  distinctly  is  not. 
Even  James  Braid,  who  in  some  places  goes  "right 
out"  for  the  sweep  notion,  refuses  to  father  it  for 
the  iron  clubs.  He  says  the  stroke  herein  is  a  hit 
and  the  player  must  remember  that. 

It  is  of  course  of  great  importance  to  try  to 
regulate  your  length  by  the  length  of  your  swing. 
It  is  of  equal  importance  to  try  always  to  use  the 
same  amount  of  muscular  exertion  so  that  you 
may  have  one  constant  factor  in  your  play,  but 
any  idea  of  leaving  any  part  of  the  iron  stroke  to 
"Nature"  is  surely  as  futile  as  waiting  about  for 
Mother  Nature  to  declare  what  kind  of  a  putting 
style  she  means  you  to  use.  Moreover,  even  if  one 
does  accustom  oneself  always  "to  swing  to  just 
the  right  length  and  with  always  the  same  amount 
of  force  applied,"  the  rest  is  not  "in  the  hands  of 
Nature." 

These  flowery  and  general  statements  are  of  no 
earthly  use  to  any  one  who  is  seeking  practical  as- 
sistance in  golf.  They  annoy  me  because  they  are 
so  utterly  different  from  what  Harry  Vardon 
would  himself  tell  one.  He  would  talk  golf  to  one 
in  his  simple,  straightforward,  sportsmanlike 
manner.  Instead  of  trying  to  leave  you  in  the 
gloom  with  Mother  Nature  he  would  tell  you  that 
after  you  have  obtained  control  of  length  and 


go  THE  NEW  GOLF 

strength  of  swing  there  is  much  that  remains  to 
be  done ;  and  that  it  mainly  depends  on  your  own 
common  sense  and  application,  and  that  if  you 
leave  it  to  gravity  and  Nature  you  will  never  be 
able  to  play  an  iron  shot. 


CHAPTEE  VII 

THE   CLEEK 

THEKE  is  not  much  difference  in  the  swing  for 
the  cleek  and  that  in  the  drive.  The  main  differ- 
ence is  perhaps  that  it  is  more  curtailed.  The  grip 
is  also  practically  the  same.  In  using  this  club,  in- 
deed in  all  iron  clubs,  one  should  grip  very  firmly 
with  both  hands.  This  may  seem  superfluous  ad- 
vice after  my  emphatic  directions  on  gripping  and 
swinging  in  the  drive,  but  it  is  impossible  to  over- 
emphasize the  necessity  for  this  with  the  iron 
clubs.  One  so  often  meets  with  ^a  good  deal  of 
obstruction  at  and  about  the  moment  of  impact 
that  unless  one's  mind  is  specially  prepared  to 
fight  it  one's  grip  is  found  wanting,  the  club  turns 
ever  so  slightly  in  the  hand,  and  the  stroke  is 
ruined. 

In  the  cleek  stroke,  more,  possibly,  than  in  the 
drive,  will  be  found  the  importance  of  my  instruc- 
tions as  to  the  distribution  of  weight  at  the  top  of 
the  swing.  It  is  of  the  greatest  importance  in  the 
cleek  shot  that  one  keeps  down  to  it.  One  must 
address  the  ball  with  the  sole  of  the  club  quite 

91 


92  THE  NEW  GOLF 

parallel  with  the  turf  and  must  see  to  it  that  du- 
ring the  stroke  the  club  passes  the  ball  in  almost 
exactly  the  same  position  as  that  in  which  it  was 
laid  to  it  in  the  address.  Keeping  the  main  por- 
tion of  the  weight  on  the  left  foot  in  the  manner 
described  by  me  is  a  wonderful  assistance  in  this 
respect. 

This  is  new  doctrine  to  many  players.  It  has 
already  proved  the  salvation  of  many.  It  was 
called  revolution  when  I  first  taught  it.  Now, 
many  of  them  are  going  too  far  to  the  other  ex- 
treme. Avoid  that,  for  it  is  almost  a  worse  error. 
In  describing  the  push  stroke,  one  journalist,  writ- 
ing a  book  for  some  one,  says  that  at  the  top  of 
the  swing  the  weight  should  be  on  the  left  big  toe. 
Poor  toe!  If  you  have  anything  from  seven  to 
fourteen  pounds  more  on  your  left  than  on  your 
right  foot  you  will  be  doing  better  than  if  the  bal- 
ance is  the  other  way. 

James  Sherlock  weighs  less  than  one  hundred 
and  forty  pounds,  or  did  when  we  were  trying  out 
the  famous  weighing  machine  experiment  in  Lon- 
don. At  the  top  of  his  swing  he  had  about  seven 
pounds  more  on  his  left  leg  than  on  his  right.  He 
uses  his  left  foot  in  the  manner  I  advocate.  Not 
long  ago  a  writer  in  America  tried  to  show  that 
what  I  was  saying  was  impractical  and  was  not 
even  in  accord  with  Sherlock's  own  practise.  He 


THE  NEW  GOLF  93 

took  a  photograph  from  Sherlock's  own  contribu- 
tion to  a  book  on  golf  which  showed  Sherlock  at 
the  top  of  the  swing  and  the  weight  very  much  on 
his  right  with  his  left  toe  merely  touching  the 
ground.  That  would  have  seemed  bad  but  for  the 
simple  fact  that  Sherlock  learned  the  truth  after 
the  book  was  published,  and  assisted  in  the  demon- 
stration willingly  although  it  did — as  the  American 
writer  said — show  teaching  contrary  to  that  of  his 
photograph;  but  even  in  that  book,  Sherlock,  in 
his  writing,  advocates  even  distribution  of  weight 
at  the  top  of  the  swing,  and  I  am  satisfied  that  any- 
one who  consistently  aims  at  that  will  not  go  far 
wrong;  for  in  that  event  it  will  be  hard  to  avoid 
that  slight  excess  which  effectually  pins  one  down 
on  to  the  left  foot  and  is  so  useful,  particularly  in 
the  cleek  shot,  in  assisting  one  to  keep  the  club 
low  down  in  the  impact. 

In  playing  the  cleek  shot,  as  indeed  in  all  strokes 
with  iron  clubs,  it  is  of  the  first  importance  to  get 
an  easy  yet  firm  action.  Firmness  and  intention 
are  of  the  essence  of  all  iron  work.  This  makes 
one  statement  of  Vardon's  about  the  swing  in  the 
cleek  shot  almost  incomprehensible  to  me.  He 
says:  "When  pivoting  on  the  left  toe,  the  body 
should  bend  slightly  and  turn  from  the  waist,  the 
head  being  kept  perfectly  still.  Thus  it  comes 
about  that  the  golfer's  system  appears  to  be  work- 


94  THE  NEW  GOLF 

ing  in  three  independent  sections — first  from  the 
feet  to  the  hips,  next  from  the  hips  to  the  neck,  and 
then  the  head." 

This  seems  to  me  to  be  a  most  unfortunate  idea 
to  put  into  any  one's  head.  In  a  properly  con- 
ceived idea  of  the  cleek  stroke  it  is  absolutely  im- 
possible to  separate  the  body  at  the  hips  into  two 
"independent  sections."  It  is  the  wonderful  hip 
movement  founded  on  his  fine  foot-work,  built  up 
as  I  have  indicated,  that  accounts  for  Vardon's 
perfect  rhythm  in  his  drive. 

This  description  of  the  swing  reminds  me  of  a 
golf  toy  I  patented  some  time  ago.  I  took  a  figure 
of  a  golfer  addressing  the  ball  and  cut  him  down- 
ward vertically  at  the  neck  and  the  hips.  I  then 
pivoted  the  parts  together.  I  was  thus  enabled 
by  drawing  back  the  golfer's  arms  to  make  him  put 
by  gravity,  but  when  I  wanted  him  to  play  an  iron 
shot  his  body  engaged  a  spring  which  found  some 
more  force.  Even  in  this  toy  the  iron  shot  wanted 
more  than  gravity.  The  head  remained  still  until 
the  follow-through,  when  a  pin  engaged  it  and  it 
turned  forward  with  the  body.  After  the  stroke 
was  played  the  figure  behaved  very  much  like  many 
human  golfers  and  proceeded  to  try  the  stroke 
over  again  with  sundry  wags  of  the  head  and 
downcast  looks,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  quite  a  natural 


THE  NEW  GOLF  95 

little  golfer  except  that  he  was  divided  into  "  three 
independent  sections. ' ' 

Any  attempt  to  get  an  idea  of  "  three  indepen- 
dent sections "  or,  so  far  as  that  goes,  any  one 
independent  section  of  the  golfer  during  the  cleek 
shot  is  so  bad,  so  untrue,  so  unlike  real  golf  that 
it  should  be  discarded  utterly.  The  hip  movement, 
instead  of  separating  anything,  is  the  wonderful 
joint  that  keeps  everything  together,  that  allows 
the  left  knee  to  go  forward  and  a  trifle  inward  to- 
wards the  ball,  that  permits  of  the  left  hip  follow- 
ing it  and  sets  up  the  reciprocal  backward  move- 
ment of  the  right  hip  that  tautens  and  braces  the 
right  leg  to  such  an  extent  that,  in  Vardon's  swing, 
the  pressure  on  his  right  foot  tends  to  be  more  on 
the  right  side  of  it  than  on  the  ball  of  the  toe. 

One  must  avoid  any  idea  of  working  in  indepen- 
dent sections  in  the  golf  swing.  This  same  idea 
has  been  exploited  as  regards  driving.  It  is  bad 
golf  and  bad  mechanics ;  moreover,  it  is  somewhat 
of  an  exaggeration  to  speak  of  the  head  "working" 
as  an  independent  section.  It  is  no  doubt  per- 
forming its  most  important  function  but  any  one 
who  thinks  that  the  rest  of  his  body  is  working 
independently  of  his  head — and  what's  in  it,  or 
ought  to  be — is  perhaps  right.  He  ought  to  be  the 
best  judge.  But  if  he  is  right,  let  him  save  his 


g6  THE  NEW  GOLF 

money  and  time  and  find  some  other  game,  for  in 
that  event  he  can  never  be  a  golfer. 

I  have  emphasized  the  importance  of  keeping 
down  to  one's  stroke  in  the  cleek  shot.  Vardon  is 
quite  pronounced  on  this  point.  He  says:  "And 
remember  that  when  you  pivot  on  the  left  toe,  the 
lift  that  there  is  here  should  not  spread  along  to 
the  head  and  shoulders,  but  should  be  absorbed,  as 
it  were,  at  the  waist,  which  should  bend  inwards 
and  turn  round  on  the  hips." 

What  you  must  "  remember "  about  this  critical 
part  of  a  stroke  that  troubles  so  many  people  for 
a  reason  they  never  suspect,  wrong  foot-work,  is 
that  the  proper  " pivoting "  (as  it  is  so  commonly 
mis-called)  has  no  "lift"  whatever  in  it  so  that 
there  is  nothing  whatever  to  "be  absorbed,  as  it 
were,  at  the  waist. ' '  The  proper  foot-work,  which 
I  so  minutely  explain,  tends  to  do  the  opposite 
to  lifting  one  away  from  the  ball.  It  really  is  the 
most  wonderful  cure  for  this  very  bad  mistake  as 
it  keeps  one  pinned  down  to  one's  work. 


CHAPTEE 

DBIVING 


THE  drive  in  golf  as  played  by  the  most  finished 
players,  really  is  a  somewhat  complex  stroke. 
Without  in  any  way  joining  the  ranks  of  those  who 
seem  to  see  something  mysterious  in  everything 
associated  with  golf  I  may  go  so  far  as  to  admit 
this. 

Whether  it  is  necessary  or  even  advisable  for 
the  vast  majority  of  golfers  to  attempt  to  mold 
their  form  on  that  of  Braid,  Vardon,  Taylor,  Eay, 
and  Duncan,  some  one  or  a  composite  of  all,  I  am 
not  prepared  here  to  argue.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  these  great  players  came  into  the  game 
when  they  were  very  young  and  that  use  is  second 
nature  with  them.  Obviously  it  would  be  futile 
for  some  one  over  middle  age,  very  stout  and  short, 
to  try  to  start  golf  with  a  swing  like  Vardon  's. 
It  is  practically  a  certainty  that  for  such  a  person 
a  much  shorter  swing  and  much  less  foot  and  ankle 
work  would  be  advisable.  Our  duty  here,  however, 
is  to  go  into  the  question  of  driving  and  to  en- 
deavor to  make  this  somewhat  complicated  opera- 

97 


g8  THE  NEW  GOLF 

tion  seem  as  simple  as  it  should  to  any  one  who  will 
take  the  trouble  to  master  it  in  detail. 


Stance  and  address. 

"Stance"  means  in  golf  the  way  in  which  one 
stands  in  relation  to  the  ball  as  one  puts  one's  club 
down  near  the  ball  preparatory  to  hitting  it. 

In  addressing  the  ball  one  usually  rests  the  club 
on  the  ground  close  to  the  ball  and  behind  it.  This 
is  not  permitted  when  the  ball  is  in  a  hazard.  The 
club  may  not  then  be  grounded. 

The  stance  which  is  most  generally  favored  now 
is  what  is  called  the  "open"  stance.  This  means 
that  in  facing  the  ball  the  player's  left  foot  has  a 
greater  tendency  to  point  towards  the  hole  than  in 
the  square  stance  which  was  formerly  most  popu- 
lar. In  the  square  stance,  still  used  by  many  good 
golfers,  the  player  stands  so  that  a  line  across 
his  toes  would  be  nearly  parallel  to  the  line  from 
the  ball  to  the  hole. 

The  consensus  of  opinion  and  the  practise  of 
experts  undoubtedly  points  to  a  moderately  open 
stance  as  being  the  most  generally  serviceable. 
Here  again,  as  elsewhere,  I  strongly  advise  the 
continual  examination  of  photographs  of  the  best 
players.  Imitation  is  probably  the  best  way  to 
learn  any  game  so  far  as  regards  the  actual  play- 
ing of  the  stroke.  Unless,  however,  one  knows  a 


THE  NEW  GOLF  99 

good  deal  of  the  reason  for  the  positions  that  one 
is  imitating  one  will  lose  a  very  great  amount  of 
time.  The  ideal  way  to  learn  golf  is  to  get  the 
analysis  of  the  motions  and  the  reasons  from  the 
book  and  then  watch  these  being  translated  into 
action,  not  by  one,  but  by  dozens,  of  the  leading 
players.  This  will  be  inconvenient  for  many  peo- 
ple. The  next  best  thing  is  to  see  all  the  photo- 
graphs one  can.  One  will  not  realize  for  some 
time  how  much  benefit  one  is  deriving  from  this 
method,  but  it  is  bound  to  make  itself  felt.  In- 
sensibly the  outstanding  points  of  importance  im- 
press themselves  on  one's  mind  and  are  finally 
incorporated  in  one's  game. 

This  will  not  come  to  pass  without  intelligent 
effort  and  critical  examination  and  comparison; 
but  with  these  there  is  no  doubt  of  the  benefit  to 
be  obtained  from  photographs.  Let  me  give  an 
illustration.  One  of  the  commonest,  and  ugliest, 
faults  of  players  is  turning  on  the  point  of  the 
left  toe  at  the  top  of  the  swing  and  presenting  the 
heel  to  the  hole.  If  one  has  any  idea  of  ever 
getting  to  know  what  rhythm  means  one  must 
watch  this  left  heel.  After  one  has  seen  a  dozen 
or  two  photographs  and  has  compared  the  posi- 
tions of  the  left  heel  at  the  top  of  the  swing  one 
will  very  thoroughly  have  learned  the  position  in 
which  it  should  be  and  probably  much  else  of  im- 


ioo  THE  NEW  GOLF 

portance  about  what  the  left  foot  is  doing  at  this 
time. 

The  ball  is  generally  addressed  so  that  it  is 
roughly  speaking  opposite  the  left  eye.  Some 
books  give  one  the  measurements  in  feet  and 
inches.  This  cannot  successfully  be  done.  No  two 
people  "come  at"  a  ball  in  the  same  way.  This 
really  is  a  case  where  one  requires  to  let  the  pupil 
assert  his  "individuality,"  provided  always  that 
he  does  not  immediately  proceed  to  outrage  Nature 
instead  of  trying  to  support  the  theory  that  she 
has  especially  interested  herself  in  the  production 
of  golf  strokes. 

Another  way  of  indicating  the  relative  position 
of  the  player  to  the  ball  in  the  drive  is  by  saying 
that  if  a  line  were  drawn  from  the  ball  towards 
the  player  at  a  right  angle  to  the  line  to  the  hole 
it  would  run  six  to  eight  inches  behind  the  player's 
left  heel.  Even  this  must  be  taken  as  a  general 
indication.  There  is  nothing  worse  than  getting  it 
into  one's  mind  that  one  must  take  up  some  par- 
ticular attitude,  for  the  truth  about  the  golf  stroke 
is  far  removed  from  that.  It  must  be  the  most 
natural,  unconstrained  thing  that  my  teaching  and 
your  thought  and  practise  can  produce  or  you  will 
not  get  the  enjoyment  from  it  that  you  should. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  in  this  chapter  on 
driving  I  am  writing  of  the  driver  and  the  brassy, 


THE  NEW  GOLF  101 

for,  generally  speaking,  what  applies  to  one  applies 
equally  to  the  other. 

In  addressing  the  ball  one  must  endeavor  so  to 
regulate  one's  distance  from  it  that  one  can  hit 
it  with  a  free  easy  swing  without  having  to  over- 
reach, as  this,  of  course,  must  tend  to  inaccuracy. 
On  the  other  hand  it  is  almost  a  worse  fault  to  get 
too  close  to  the  ball,  as  this  is  quite  fatal  to  good 
driving.  It  is  only  natural  that  it  will  take  some 
little  time  for  the  beginner  to  find  out  his  right 
position  and,  even  when  he  is  assisted  by  a  pro- 
fessional, he  need  not  expect  to  get  it  all  at  once. 
This  is  another  case  where  sometimes  the  hard 
letter  of  the  law  must  be  relaxed  to  allow  for  per- 
sonal idiosyncrasy.  The  main  thing  to  be  kept  in 
mind,  or  rather  to  be  assimilated,  stowed  away  in 
the  pigeon-holes  of  the  mind  and  sub-consciously 
used,  is  that,  so  far  as  regards  this  particular 
matter,  there  is  a  lot  of  centrifugal  force  behind 
the  head  of  a  driver  in  the  golf  swing  and  that  one 
should  allow  just  so  much  as  is  necessary  for  the 
consequent  swinging  out  of  the  club  head.  To  cor- 
rect this  swinging  out  some  golfers,  without  know- 
ing why  they  do  it,  address  the  ball  with  the  toe 
of  the  club.  This  is  not  to  be  recommended  as  a 
general  practice.  One  should  always  address  the 
ball,  as  nearly  as  possible,  as  one  intends  to  return 
to  it. 


102  THE  NEW  GOLF 

At  the  address  the  weight  of  the  body  should, 
as  nearly  as  possible,  be  distributed  equally  be- 
tween the  legs.  This  again  is  one  of  those  im- 
portant things  which  nevertheless  can  be  dismissed 
from  one's  mind  almost  as  soon  as  one  is  told 
about  it.  It  is  so  natural  that  having  done  it  once 
or  twice  it  will  never  occur  to  any  one  to  do  any- 
thing else.  So,  indeed,  is  it  with  the  address. 
Nine  of  ten  persons  if  given  a  driver  and  told  to 
drive  a  ball  would,  so  far  as  the  relative  position 
of  feet  and  ball  is  concerned,  take  up  a  fairly  good 
square  stance.  The  alteration  from  this  position 
to  the  open  stance  is  very  easy  and  is  not  un- 
natural. 

The  waggle. 

If  some  journalist  writing  a  book  for  a  great 
golfer  had  made  him  say  that  Mother  Nature  had 
allotted  to  each  golfer  a  special  kind  of  waggle, 
and  that  herein  lay  the  greatest  display  of  indi- 
viduality in  any  portion  of  this  great  game,  I  am 
afraid  that  I  should  not  have  been  courageous 
enough  to  contradict  him.  I  have  no  evidence  to 
offer  in  rebuttal;  and  the  fearful  and  wonderful 
and  protracted  efforts  of  some  of  the  poor  souls, 
whose  main  idea  seems  to  be  to  put  off  the  evil 
moment,  would  certainly  be  taken  by  many  as 
strong  corroborative  testimony.  To  put  it  bru- 


THE  NEW  GOLF  103 

tally  but  graphically,  the  waggle  is  with  far  too 
many  players  and  would-be  players  a  compound  of 
moral  cowardice  and  ignorance. 

I  know  this  sounds  unkind.  One  does  not  love 
the  dentist  or  the  surgeon  while  the  forceps  or  the 
knife  is  doing  its  work — but  afterwards,  when  the 
pang  is  over  one  can  properly  appreciate  his  ef- 
forts. Now,  how  is  this  defective  waggling  to  be 
remedied. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  waggle  is  an  im- 
portant part  of  the  golf  stroke.  Everybody  does 
it,  some  more  and  some  less,  mostly  more — espe- 
cially when  they  are  in  front  of  us. 

Now,  if  I  were  not  dealing  strictly  with  the 
science  and  practise  of  golf  I  might  write  a  book 
on  the  "  psychology "  of  the  waggle,  for  unques- 
tionably the  waggle  has  a  "  psychology "  of  its 
own ;  yet  I  have  heard  of  a  man  who  went  hunting 
the  mystery  of  golf  and  never  even  saw  the  waggle, 
the  most  mysterious  thing  in  golf.  The  waggle  of 
most  golfers  has  much  in  it  whose  reason  and  use 
are  as  recondite  as  the  functions  of  the  vermiform 
appendix,  yet  with  this  virgin  field  at  their  feet, 
or  their  agile  pens,  the  golf  scribes  have  passed 
heedlessly  on. 

To  be  perfectly  serious,  it  is  curious  that  this 
portion  of  the  stroke  has  never  received  any  real 
attention  except  in  the  solitary  case  in  which  I 


104  THE  NEW  GOLF 

illustrated  George  Duncan's  waggle  by  diagram- 
matic photographs.  Duncan's  waggle  is,  however, 
the  quickest  in  professional  golf  and,  so  far  as  my 
experience  goes,  in  golf.  There  is  nothing  super- 
fluous in  it.  He  comes  up  to  his  ball  as  it  lies  on 
the  fair  green.  As  he  approaches  it  he  t l  sizes  up ' ' 
his  shot.  He  settles  easily  and  naturally  to  the 
ball,  swings  his  club  head  up  so  that  his  forearms 
and  the  club  are  in  one  line  pointing  away  to  the 
hole,  his  upper  arms  hanging  easily  and  naturally, 
and  then  allows  the  club  head  to  sink  quickly  to 
rest  behind  the  ball.  Then  he  picks  the  club  up  so 
that  the  head  rises  up  about  fifteen  inches  and 
goes  forward,  in  a  gradual  curve  during  the  last 
six  inches  of  its  rise,  until  it  momentarily  stops 
about  six  inches  forward  of  the  ball ;  from  here  it 
sweeps  backward  and  downward,  nearly  all  the 
time  in  line  with  the  hole,  until  after  moving  about 
three  feet  it  comes  to  a  stop  for  a  fraction  of  a  sec- 
ond at  about  a  foot  from  the  turf.  From  here  it 
moves  quickly,  but  smoothly,  back  to  the  ball,  hesi- 
tates half  an  inch  behind  it  and  three  inches  from 
the  turf,  then  sinks  rapidly  to  the  ground  immedi- 
ately behind  the  ball. 

Although  this  takes  a  few  words  to  describe  it  is 
over  in  a  flash,  yet  it  is  performed  without  the  sem- 
blance of  a  jerk.  No  more  is  necessary  for  a  wag- 


THE  NEW  GOLF  105 

gle.  Duncan  has  shown  us  that.  To  attempt  to 
use  less  would  probably  be  a  mistake. 

Now  here  again  is  an  instance  where  we  must 
be  broad-minded,  or  human,  enough  to  allow  our 
player  some  little  latitude.  To  insist  on  so  short 
a  waggle  as  this  would  ruin  the  stroke  of  many 
players,  but  I  am  prepared  to  use  Duncan's  ex- 
tremely short  and  rapid  waggle  as  a  lesson  to  those 
who  waste  their  own  time,  and  that  of  countless 
players,  in  an  effort  to  hypnotize  the  ball  by  weird 
and  useless  wavings  of  the  club,  about  three  quar- 
ters of  which,  instead  of  being  any  assistance,  are 
a  positive  detriment  and  calculated  to  put  one  off 
making  any  kind  of  a  decent  shot. 

The  use  of  a  waggle  is  to  enable  one  to  i '  loosen 
up"  to  the  ball  and  to  make  the  same  motion,  as 
nearly  as  one  can  in  such  a  gentle  way,  as  will  be 
made  in  returning  to  the  ball  in  the  stroke.  Thus 
it  will  be  seen  that  all  motions  which  take  the  club 
off  the  line  to  the  hole  and  that  line  produced 
through  the  ball  should,  so  far  as  possible,  be 
avoided.  If  this  be  remembered  and  acted  on,  it 
will  increase  the  capacity  of  our  links  wonderfully, 
for  it  will  cut  out  an  immense  number  of  useless 
geometrical  figures  that  are  indulged  in  by  those 
who  stand  in  fear  and  trembling,  making  signs  to 
the  fetich  of  the  waggle  in  the  hope  of  propitiating 


io6  THE  NEW  GOLF 

the  divinity  who  presides  over  the  mystery  of  golf, 
instead  of  cutting  the  mischievous  little  interloper 
off  short,  to  the  benefit  of  their  game  and  the  in- 
creased enjoyment  of  their  fellow  creatures. 

In  rifle  shooting  the  first  time  you  see  the  center 
is  the  time  to  let  off.  In  golf,  the  first  time  you 
feel  easy  and  right  after  settling  down  to  your 
ball  is  the  time  to  smite  it.  Procrastination  in  this 
connection  is  the  thief  of  accuracy — and  of  your 
fellow-members  *  golf. 

It  would  not  matter  so  much  if  it  were  only  your 
own  time;  but  think  of  the  string  of  unfortunate 
persons  you  are  holding  up  behind  you,  merely  for 
the  purpose  of  confirming  or  increasing  a  bad 
habit.  You  will  then  probably  decide  to  curtail 
your  waggle  by  at  least  fifty  per  cent.,  which  is 
about  the  average  amount  that  could  be  cut  off  the 
waggle,  not  only  without  detriment  but  with  posi- 
tive benefit. 

The  left  foot. 

We  have  finished  with  the  waggle  and  we  are 
now  back  to  the  ball  firmly  and  comfortably  settled 
in  the  address.  In  the  ordinary  course  I  should 
now  take  you  through  the  upward  swing,  but  I  have 
so  much  to  say  about  the  left  foot  that  I  must  rivet 
your  attention  on  it  while  the  swing  is  being  played. 
In  the  meantime  you  must  not  worry  about  what  is 


THE  NEW  GOLF  107 

going  on,  and  how  it  is  being  performed.  You 
must  give  all  the  attention  you  can  spare  to  the  left 
foot,  for  believe  me,  it  has  been  neglected  and  ma- 
ligned and  robbed  in  the  past,  and  if  .you  wish  to 
make  your  game  what  it  should  be  you  must  see 
that  it  gets  justice. 

The  first  thing  that  happens  with  the  left  foot  in 
the  upward  swing  is  that  the  left  heel  leaves  the 
ground.  This  does  not  in  any  way  depend  on  the 
pull  of  the  arms  as  is  so  often  stated.  It  is  not 
postponed  until  the  club  gets  four  or  five  feet 
from  the  ball.  It  starts  when  it  is  four  or  five 
inches  from  it,  if  not  contemporaneously  with  its 
leaving  the  ball,  if  the  stroke  is  played  with  true 
rhythm.  The  left  heel  continues  to  rise  gradually 
and  smoothly  until  it  reaches  the  highest  point 
from  the  earth  at  the  top  of  the  swing. 

Now  we  have  to  consider  how  it  rises.  This 
may  seem  at  first  like  an  excess  of  analysis.  It 
really  is  not  so ;  and  a  proper  understanding  of  it 
is  the  key,  or  one  of  the  keys,  to  the  most  beautiful 
movement  in  golf,  the  proper  loin  and  hip- work 
that  is  used  by  Harry  Vardon,  the  finest  stroke 
player  in  the  world. 

Quite  ninety  per  cent,  of  players  go  wrong  right 
here.  Directly  the  heel  rises  from  the  ground, 
which  quite  frequently  it  does  too  late  for  true 
rhythm,  they  turn  the  foot  in  sideways  so  that  the 


io8  THE  NEW  GOLF 

pressure  is  all  on  one  side  of  the  sole  of  the  foot — 
say,  roughly,  on  a  strip  an  inch  wide  and  running 
from  the  ball  of  the  big  toe  to  the  end  of  the  toe. 
In  order  that  there  may  be  no  mistake  about  this, 
James  Braid  in  How  to  Play  Golf  gives  a  diagram 
of  the  sole  of  the  shoe  showing  this  strip. 

This  is  bad  golf.  The  pressure  should  be  right 
across  the  front  part  of  the  foot  in  a  line  with  the 
place  where  the  toes  join  the  foot ;  in  fact,  on  the 
full  breadth  of  the  forward  part  of  the  foot. 
There  should  be  no  idea  of  "pivoting"  on  the  left 
big  toe.  This  word  has  been  responsible  for  a 
vast  amount  of  bad  golf.  It  is  thoroughly  mis- 
leading. The  left  foot  might  be  nailed  through 
the  toes  across  in  a  line  with  the  ball  of  the  big 
toe  for  all  the  "pivoting"  it  does  in  the  golf  stroke. 

The  left  foot  does  undoubtedly  assist  the  left 
knee  in  bending  in  toward  the  ball.  Mark,  not 
"toward  the  right  leg,"  as  one  is  usually  told. 
This  however  we  shall  deal  with  later.  The  as- 
sistance given  by  the  left  foot  in  this  respect  is  of 
a  nature  that  has  never  been  correctly  set  out  by 
the  great  golfers.  It  comes  mainly  from  a  side 
bend  of  the  ankle  and  a  slight  twisting  of  the  foot 
at  and  about  the  instep.  This  movement  should 
be  most  carefully  studied,  as  on  its  proper  per- 
formance rests  the  soundness  of  one's  base  at  the 
top  of  the  swing. 


THE  NEW  GOLF  109 

We  have  seen  now  that  in  the  upward  swing  the 
left  heel  leaves  the  ground  immediately  the  club 
leaves  the  ball.  It  continues  to  rise  as  the  club 
goes  up  and  at  the  same  time  the  ankle  joint  turns 
inwards  and  the  instep  twists  over  a  little.  While 
this  is  taking  place  the  left  foot  remains  firmly 
planted  on  the  ground  with  the  weight  that  is  on 
it,  which  will  be  considered  in  due  course,  dis- 
tributed right  across  the  foot,  which  does  not  in 
any  sense  of  the  word  l '  pivot ' '  or  change  from  the 
position  it  was  in  relative  to  the  line  of  flight  of 
the  ball.  In  fact,  so  that  there  may  be  no  possible 
misunderstanding  about  it,  I  shall  say  plainly  that 
the  front  third  of  the  left  foot  is  nailed  to  the  earth 
for  all  the  movement  up,  down  or  sideways  that 
there  is  in  it. 

I  have  referred  to  the  common  error  of  pointing 
the  left  heel  toward  the  hole  at  the  top  of  the  swing. 
This  is  a  fault  to  which  all  those  who  indulge  in 
"pivoting"  are  prone.  The  heel  should  rise  and 
fall  above  its  original  position  or  practically  so. 
It  will  be  obvious  that  if  the  movement  is  properly 
made  as  indicated  the  heel  will  at  the  top  of  the 
swing  be  slightly  farther  away  from  the  hole  than 
in  the  address,  but  in  no  case  must  it  be  turned  so 
that  it  goes  nearer  to  the  hole ;  in  fact  if  the  front 
part  of  the  foot  be  kept  firmly  and  properly  placed 
the  heel  also  must  remain  in  its  proper  position. 


no  THE  NEW  GOLF 

In  the  downward  swing  the  motions  here  de- 
scribed are  reversed,  and  at  the  finish  the  left  foot 
is  firmly  planted  on  the  ground,  as  in  the  address, 
and  the  player  finishes  his  drive  slightly  across  the 
foot.  This  will  receive  due  attention  in  its  place. 

The  left  leg. 

The  next  portion  of  the  body  that  we  must  con- 
sider is  the  left  leg.  Directly  the  left  heel  leaves 
the  ground  the  left  leg  bends  inwards  at  the  knee 
in  the  direction  of  the  ball.  All  books  tell  one  that 
it  bends  in  toward  the  right  leg.  This  it  never 
does,  for  a  very  simple  yet  all  sufficient  reason :  it 
cannot  bend  that  way!  It  was  never  intended  to 
do  so,  and  it  will  not.  If  any  one  doubts  my  state- 
ment let  the  experiment  be  made. 

The  truth  is  that  the  movement  of  the  left  knee 
is  toward  the  ball.  The  knee  only  goes  toward 
the  right  leg,  when  the  stroke  is  properly  played, 
so  far  as  the  bend  of  the  left  ankle  joint  and  the 
turn  of  the  left  instep  will  allow  it.  If  there  is  no 
attempt  to  overdo  these  natural  actions  one  re- 
tains one's  firm  base  right  across  the  left  foot  at 
the  toes  and  the  "pad"  of  the  foot,  and  has  a  solid 
foundation  at  the  top  of  the  swing,  together  with 
full  command  of  the  left  leg,  instead  of  a  totally 
insecure  foothold  and  such  an  unnatural  position 
of  the  knee  that  all  the  weight  is  thrown  onto  the 


THE  NEW  GOLF  in 

right  leg  and  the  rhythm  of  the  swing  irretrievably 
ruined.  We  may  now  for  a  time  leave  the  left  leg 
and  see  what  has  been  happening  to  its  companion. 

The  right  leg. 

While  all  this  has  been  happening,  the  right  leg 
has  not  moved  except  torsionally.  Here,  I  am 
afraid,  I  must  allow  some  other  portions  of  the 
anatomy  to  intrude  on  my  sectional  analysis,  but 
I  shall  only  do  that  in  so  far  as  I  cannot  keep 
them  out,  for  I  have  a  very  definite  object  in  con- 
sidering each  portion  of  the  machinery  by  itself. 

As  the  left  knee  moves  in  towards  the  ball  it  nat- 
urally pulls  the  left  hip  joint  after  it.  The  twist- 
ing movement  of  the  body,  commonly  mis-called 
rotation,  is  supposed  to  take  place  with  the  spine 
as  an  axis.  It  follows  then  that  this  pulling  for- 
ward of  the  left  hip  joint  throws  backward  the 
right  hip  joint.  As  the  right  foot  is  planted  firmly 
for  its  full  length  on  the  earth  now  and  until  some 
time  after  the  top  of  the  swing  is  reached,  it  fol- 
lows that  the  right  leg  is  twisted  at  the  top  of  the 
swing. 

It  is  this  torsional  strain  that  has  been  mistaken 
for  weight  and  that  has  led  to  the  great  mistake 
made  by  the  most  famous  professionals  and 
writers  in  this  most  vital  matter. 

Now  without  considering  the  hands  or  arms  we 


ii2  THE  NEW  GOLF 

have  arrived  at  the  top  of  the  swing;  and  let  me 
say  now  that  although  I  have  never  even  thought 
of  teaching  the  drive  this  way  in  practise,  it  would 
probably  be  much  sounder  and  productive  of  better 
results  than  the  methods  generally  used. 

The  weight  at  the  top  of  the  swing. 

We  have  now  to  consider  a  position  of  the  very 
greatest  importance  in  the  golf  swing.  Certainly 
our  player  has  arrived  at  it  without  arms  or  hands 
or  a  club.  This  in  the  ordinary  way  would  no 
doubt  be  some  slight  handicap.  It  will,  I  think, 
make  the  task  I  have  here  if  anything  easier  and 
my  argument  clearer,  for  our  golfer  is  in  effect  a 
lump  of  material, — let  us  say,  lead — supported  on 
two  legs  of — say,  iron. 

Now  we  must  see  what  the  great  players  have  to 
,say  about  this  question  of  the  weight  at  the  top  of 
the  swing,  for  it  is  not  going  too  far  to  say  that 
this  is  a  matter  that  strikes  at  the  very  root  of  the 
game,  that  is  actually  a  fundamental,  that  is  a 
matter  of  principle,  that  admits  of  no  paltering  or 
equivocation.  It  is  a  question  that  has  to  be  de- 
cided, on  the  evidence  supplied  to  him,  by  every 
golfer  who  desires  to  know  and  to  play  real  golf. 
Therefore  it  is  a  question  worthy  of  close  analysis. 

So  important  do  I  consider  this  matter  that  it 
seems  to  me  that  if  one  teaches  this  incorrectly  it 


THE  NEW  GOLF  113 

does  not  matter  what  else  one  teaches  correctly. 
False  teaching  here  strikes  at  the  very  heart  of  the 
game. 

Vardon,  on  page  68  of  The  Complete  Golfer, 
says:  "The  movements  of  the  feet  and  legs  are 
important.  In  addressing  the  ball  you  stand  with 
both  feet  flat  and  squarely  placed  on  the  ground, 
the  weight  equally  divided  between  them,  and  the 
knees  so  slightly  bent  at  the  knee  joints  as  to  make 
the  bending  scarcely  noticeable.  This  position  is 
maintained  during  the  upward  movement  of  the 
club  until  the  arms  begin  to  pull  at  the  body.  The 
easiest  and  most  natural  thing  to  do  then,  and  the 
one  which  suggests  itself,  is  to  raise  the  heel  of 
the  left  foot  and  begin  to  pivot  on  the  left  toe, 
which  allows  the  arms  to  proceed  with  their  up- 
lifting process  without  let  or  hindrance.  Do  not 
begin  to  pivot  on  this  left  toe  ostentatiously  or  be- 
cause you  feel  you  ought  to  do  so,  but  only  when 
you  know  that  the  time  has  come,  and  you  want  to, 
and  do  it  only  to  such  an  extent  that  the  club  can 
reach  the  full  extent  of  the  swing  without  any  dif- 
ficulty. 

"While  this  is  happening  it  follows  that  the 
weight  of  the  body  is  being  gradually  thrown  on 
to  the  right  leg,  which  gradually  stiffens,  until  at 
the  top  of  the  swing  it  is  quite  rigid,  the  left  being 
at  the  same  time  in  a  state  of  comparative  free- 


ii4  THE  NEW  GOLF 

dom,  slightly  bent  in  towards  the  right,  with  only 
just  enough  pressure  on  the  toe  to  keep  it  in  posi- 
tion. " 

This  is  Vardon's  considered  opinion  on  this  im- 
portant matter. 

On  page  53  of  Great  Golfers,  he  says,  speaking 
of  the  Downward  Swing:  "In  commencing  the 
downward  swing  I  try  to  feel  that  both  hands  and 
wrists  are  working  together.  The  wrists  start 
bringing  the  club  down,  and  at  the  same  moment, 
the  left  knee  commences  to  resume  its  original  po- 
sition. The  head  during  this  time  has  been  kept 
quite  still,  the  body  alone  pivoting  from  the  hips. ' ' 

We  must  notice  carefully  that  "The  head  dur- 
ing this  time" — that  is  during  the  whole  of  the 
time  from  the  address  to  the  top  of  the  swing— 
"has  been  quite  still,"  and  that  the  correct  posi- 
tion at  the  finish  of  the  backward  or  upward  swing 
is  obtained  by  "the  body  alone  pivoting  from  the 
hips. ' ' 

Analyzing  these  instructions  we  find: 

1.  That  at  the  address  the  weight  is  equally  di- 
vided between  the  feet. 

2.  That  during  the  swing  the  head  must  be  kept 
quite  still. 

3.  That  the  pivoting  of  the  body  must  be  done 
at  the  hips. 


THE  NEW  GOLF  115 

4.  That  there  is  no  change  in  the  position  of  the 
right  foot. 

Therefore,  we  start  with  the  weight  equally  dis- 
tributed between  the  feet.  We  are  held  as  in  a 
vise  so  far  as  backward  movement,  or  movement 
away  from  the  hole,  is  concerned,  at  three  points, 
the  right  foot,  the  right  hip  and  the  head,  yet  at  the 
top  of  the  swing  all  the  weight  of  the  body  has  in 
some  mysterious  manner  got  onto  the  right  leg ! 

James  Braid  makes  the  same  statement  about 
the  weight  at  the  top  of  the  swing.  On  page  56  of 
Advanced  Golf  he  says :  "  At  the  top  of  the  swing, 
although  nearly  all  the  weight  will  be  on  the  right 
foot,  the  player  must  feel  a  distinct  pressure  on 
the  left  one,  that  is  to  say,  it  must  still  be  doing  a 
small  share  in  the  work  of  supporting  the  body. ' ' 

We  have  J.  H.  Taylor  also  as  a  subscriber  to 
this  idea.  On  page  207  of  Taylor  on  Golf  he  says : 
"Then  as  the  club  comes  back  in  the  swing,  the 
weight  should  be  shifted  by  degrees,  quietly  and 
gradually,  until  when  the  club  has  reached  its  top- 
most point  the  whole  weight  of  the  body  is  sup- 
ported by  the  right  leg,  the  left  foot  at  this  time 
being  turned,  and  the  left  knee  bent  in  towards  the 
right  leg.  Next,  as  the  club  is  taken  back  to  the 
horizontal  position  behind  the  head,  the  shoulders 
should  be  swung  around,  although  the  head  must 


n6  THE  NEW  GOLF 

be  allowed  to  remain  in  the  same  position  with  the 
eyes  looking  over  the  left  shoulder." 

Mr.  Walter  J.  Travis  in  Practical  Golf  says: 
"In  the  upward  swing  it  will  be  noticed  that  the 
body  has  been  turned  very  freely  with  the  natural 
transference  of  weight  almost  entirely  to  the  right 
foot,  and  that  the  left  foot  has  been  pulled  up  and 
around  on  the  toe.  Without  such  aid  the  down- 
ward stroke  would  be  lacking  in  pith." 

Mr.  Travis  makes  it  very  clear  that  his  idea  of 
the  drive  in  golf  is  that  one  must  get  on  to  one's 
right  leg  at  the  top  of  one's  swing  if  one  wants  to 
get  "pith"  in  one's  drive. 

Mr.  Horace  Hutchinson  on  page  88  of  Golf  in 
the  Badminton  Series  says:  "Now,  as  the  club 
came  to  the  horizontal  behind  the  head,  the  body 
will  have  been  allowed  to  turn,  gently,  with  its 
weight  upon  the  right  foot." 

Surely  this  is  a  mass  of  authority  in  favor  of 
the  right  foot.  I  am  presenting  it  all  here  because 
I  know  that  I  must  face  it.  I  am  diametrically 
opposed  to  this  teaching ;  and  when  you  have  read 
what  I  have  said,  and  have  tested  it,  you  must  elect 
whether  you  intend  to  remain  true  to  the  fetiches 
of  tradition  or  to  become  a  disciple  of  The  New 
Golf. 

There  is  no  possible  doubt  of  the  rooted  nature 
of  this  false  idea.  The  greatest  writers  and  play- 


THE  NEW  GOLF  117 

ers  emphasize  it  over  and  over  again.  James 
Braid  is  particularly  emphatic  about  it.  In  How 
to  Play  Golf  he  says:  "When  the  swing  is  well 
started,  that  is  to  say,  when  the  club  has  been 
taken  a  matter  of  about  a  couple  of  feet  from  the 
ball,  it  will  become  impossible,  or  at  least  incon- 
venient and  uncomfortable  to  keep  the  feet  so 
firmly  planted  on  the  ground  as  they  were  when 
the  address  was  made.  It  is  the  left  one  that 
wants  to  move,  and  consequently  at  this  stage  you 
must  allow  it  to  pivot.  By  this  is  meant  that  the 
heel  is  raised  slightly,  and  the  foot  turns  over 
until  only  the  ball  of  it  rests  on  the  ground.  Many 
players  pivot  on  the  toe,  but  I  think  this  is  not  so 
safe,  and  does  not  preserve  the  balance  so  well. 
When  this  pivoting  begins,  the  weight  is  being 
taken  off  the  left  leg  and  transferred  almost  en- 
tirely to  the  right,  and  at  the  same  moment  the  left 
knee  turns  in  towards  the  right  toe.  The  right  leg 
then  stiffens  a  little  and  the  right  heel  is  more 
firmly  than  ever  planted  on  the  ground. ' ' 

This  matter  is  vital  to  the  playing  of  the  swing. 
I  am  charging  plainly  that  all  the  current  teaching 
about  it  is  false  and  misleading  and  calculated  to 
injure,  instead  of  to  improve,  one's  game;  there- 
fore I  must  be  most  specific  and  analytical  in  con- 
demning fundamental  teaching  so  strongly  re- 
enforced  as  this  is. 


n8  THE  NEW  GOLF 

I  may  say,  however,  that  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
famous  golfers  and  writers,  for  I  have  not  quoted 
the  half  of  those  who  preach  this  doctrine,  have 
a  fairly  stiff  mechanical  problem  to  deal  with  in 
the  exposition  I  have  already  given.  I  shall  how- 
ever try  to  make  it  a  little  stronger. 

Even  those  with  a  very  slight  knowledge  of  golf 
are  aware  that  swaying  is  a  bad  fault.  Swaying 
means  drawing  the  body  away  from  the  hole  in 
making  the  stroke.  Vardon  is  most  emphatic 
about  this.  He  says:  "In  the  upward  movement 
of  the  club  the  body  must  pivot  from  the  waist 
alone  and  there  must  be  no  swaying,  not  even  to 
the  extent  of  an  inch." 

We  are  all  familiar  with  the  instructions  given 
by  nearly  every  man  who  has  put  his  name  to  a  golf 
book,  namely,  to  make  the  spine  the  ' '  axis ' '  of  the 
twisting  movement.  One  writer  (I  am  almost  sure 
that  it  is  J.  H.  Taylor)  explains  that  the  twisting 
takes  place  on  an  imaginary  axis  consisting  of  a 
rod  of  iron  coinciding  with  the  spine  and  contin- 
uing until  it  buries  itself  in  the  ground.  We  thus 
get  a  very  vivid  idea  of  the  importance  attached 
to  there  being  no  movement  away  from  the  hole 
during  the  swing,  but  if  we  start  with  our  weight 
equally  distributed  and  twist  round  on  our  iron 
spine  how  can  we  possibly  get  all,  or  indeed  any 


THE  NEW  GOLF  119 

more  of  it  than  was  originally  there,  on  to  the  right 
foot?  I  must  leave  some  one  else  to  answer  this 
question.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  cannot  be  done. 
The  instructions  given  are  quite  faulty.  It  might 
— I  say  it  might — be  good  golf  to  have  all  one's 
weight  on  the  right  foot  at  the  top  of  the  swing, 
but  there  is  nothing  more  certain  on  earth  than 
that  it  cannot  be  put  there  by  the  means  described 
in  nearly  every  book  on  golf. 

We  have  settled  fairly  conclusively  that  the 
weight  at  the  top  of  the  swing  cannot  go  on  to  the 
right  leg.  We  must  now  inquire  where  it  does  go. 
The  answer  to  this  is  simple,  natural  and  practical 
as  everything  in  good  golf  should  be.  For  all  prac- 
tical purposes  we  may  say  that  the  weight  at  the 
top  of  the  swing  is  equally  divided  between  the 
legs.  That  is  the  best,  the  simplest,  and  the  most 
natural  idea  for  the  golfer  to  get  into  his  mind. 
He  must  at  the  top  of  his  swing  keep  himself  so 
that  his  weight  remains  distributed  as  it  was  at  the 
address. 

This  is  the  idea,  the  practical  idea,  that  entails 
no  thought,  no  special  attention,  after  one  has 
properly  absorbed  it,  yet  it  will  carry  one  farther 
than  the  equal  distribution  of  weight,  as  it  should 
do.  It  will  in  fact  put  slightly  more  weight  on  the 
left  foot  than  on  the  right,  but  the  player  will  not 


120  THE  NEW  GOLF 

have  to  cumber  his  mind  with  this  operation.  It 
comes  about  naturally  of  itself  when  once  the  fun- 
damentals have  sunk  into  one's  mind. 

My  readers  must  remember  that  we  have  arrived 
at  the  top  of  the  swing,  my  lay  figure  merely  a 
leaden  body  with  two  iron  legs,  placed  as  in  the 
address  at  golf.  All  told  the  figure  weighs  say 
one  hundred  pounds.  The  legs  are  resting  on  two 
separate  scales  each  of  which  shows  a  weight  of 
.fifty  pounds.  Let  us  now  take  a  hammer  and 
knock  in  the  left  "knee"  so  that  it  bends  in  toward 
the  ball,  and  then  see  what  has  happened.  Nat- 
urally the  figure  has  tilted  over  a  little  to  the  left, 
that  is  toward  the  hole.  Naturally  also  there  is 
now  more  weight  on  the  left  "leg"  for  the  short- 
ening of  the  prop  under  the  weight  by  bending  it 
has  brought  more  of  the  weight  forward,  and  the 
left  leg  is  shortened  by  being  bent,  despite  the  fact 
of  the  left  heel  being  raised. 

From  all  of  which  it  will  be  seen  that  in  a  well- 
executed  drive  at  golf,  instead  of  drawing  weight 
away  from  the  hole  at  the  top  of  the  swing,  the 
player  either  keeps  it  as  it  was,  or  advances  it 
slightly  toward  the  hole.  It  must  be  remembered, 
however,  that  advancing  one's  weight  towards  the 
hole  does  not  necessarily  mean  moving  one's  body 
forward.  One's  head  may  have  been  kept  per- 
fectly still  and  yet  heavier  portions  of  the  body 


THE  NEW  GOLF  121 

may  have  been  twisted  just  over  the  dividing  line. 

At  the  top  of  the  swing  the  left  foot  should  un- 
doubtedly carry  a  little  more  of  the  weight  than 
the  right.  This  was  proved  at  the  historic  de- 
monstration that  I  gave  to  the  Golfers  and  the 
Press  of  the  World  at  the  West  End  School  of  Golf, 
Piccadilly,  London. 

I  had  made  to  my  order  two  scales,  each  weigh- 
ing up  to  two  hundred  pounds.  These  were  placed 
close  together.  The  golfer  took  his  stance  with 
his  weight  equally  divided.  A  lever  which  op- 
erated a  pointer  on  a  measure  graduated  to  quar- 
ter inches  was  put  within  a  fraction  of  an  inch  of 
his  hip.  One  also  curved  in  and  came  up  close 
to  his  neck  so  that  it  did  not  interfere  with  his 
drive.  We  now  had  him  with  his  weight  equally 
distributed  and  he  had  to  play  his  stroke  so  that 
it  all  got  on  to  his  right  leg  without  disturbing 
either  of  the  levers.  I  offered  Braid,  Taylor  and 
Vardon  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  each  if  they 
could  prove  their  theories  to  be  practical  golf.  By 
this  time,  however,  they  had  come  to  see  the  mis- 
taken idea  in  the  prevalent  teaching. 

James  Sherlock  and  other  famous  golfers  tried 
the  machine.  I  offered  Sherlock  a  hundred  and 
twenty-five  dollars  on  the  spot  if  he  could  do  what 
we  are  combating  as  false  teaching.  He  got  on 
the  machine  and  tried  in  every  possible  way  to  get 


122  THE  NEW  GOLF 

that  money.  Finally  he  got  down  and,  "It's  no 
use;  it  can't  be  done."  To  which  I  replied,  "You 
may  be  fairly  sure  I  knew  that  before  I  offered  you 
a  hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars." 

This  machine  is  regarded  as  such  a  valuable 
means  of  instruction  that  the  West  End  School  of 
Golf  would  not  sell  it  to  a  friend  of  mine  who 
wanted  one  for  New  York  so  he  had  to  get  a  dupli- 
cate made.  If  there  is  any  lingering  doubt  in 
any  one 's  mind  now  as  to  whether  the  teaching  of 
the  new  golf  is  sound  or  not  in  this  vital  point  I 
shall  be  glad  to  arrange  for  a  demonstration  in 
New  York  similar  to  that  given  in  London. 

In  Great  Golfers,  speaking  of  his  stance  and 
address,  Vardon  says:  "I  stand  firmly  with  the 
weight  rather  on  the  right  leg. ' '  Later  on  speak- 
ing of  the  top  of  the  swing  he  says :  * '  There  is  dis- 
tinct pressure  of  the  left  toe  and  very  little  more 
weight  should  be  felt  on  the  right  leg  than  there 
was  when  the  ball  was  addressed. ' ' 

Unfortunately  this  was  published  long  before 
the  statements  of  Vardon  which  I  have  already 
quoted.  Personally  I  believe  that  if  it  were  put 
up  to  him  to-day  he  would  abide  by  the  last  quoted 
statement,  but  we  cannot  of  course  decide  that. 
We  merely  have  to  take  his  written  word  as  we 
find  it  and  deal  with  that. 

We  have  now  got  to  the  top  of  our  swing,  minus 


THE  NEW  GOLF  123 

our  head  and  our  arms.  So  far  we  have  been  able 
to  do  very  well  without  them  for  they  would  only 
have  been  in  our  way.  "We  have  been  considering 
things  that  were  nearer  to  the  foundation  of  the 
swing — things  which  literally  are  the  foundation. 
Take,  for  instance,  this  question  of  resting 
squarely  across  the  full  width  of  the  left  foot.  I 
have  brought  you  now  to  see  that  more  weight 
should  be  on  the  left  foot  than  there  is  on  the  right 
at  the  top  of  the  swing.  Does  it  not  then  follow 
that  you  must  have  a  firm  and  solid  base  for  the 
foot  which  takes  such  an  important  part  in  the 
drive  ? 

Never  in  the  bibliography  of  golf  has  the  impor- 
tance of  this  point  been  adequately  impressed  on 
golfers  and  learners.  I  had  written  Modern  Golf 
and  The  Soul  of  Golf  before  I  came  to  realize  that 
it  is  primarily  from  this  that  Harry  Vardon  gets 
his  rhythm. 

The  arms  in  the  upward  swing. 

There  is  no  mystery  about  what  the  arms  and 
wrists  do  in  the  upward  swing.  I  have  spoken  of 
the  press  forward.  This  is  not  an  essential,  but 
I  do  believe  that  it  is  useful.  The  hands  are  ad- 
vanced so  that  they  go  forward  of  the  ball  a  few 
inches  just  before  the  club  is  raised  from  the 
ground.  It  does,  I  think,  tend  to  stop  the  hands 


124  THE  NEW  GOLF 

getting  away  before  the  club  head;  moreover  it 
feels  comfortable.  The  next  thing  is  to  pick  your 
club  up  naturally,  holding  it  tightly  with  both 
hands,  and  to  hit  the  ball,  still  holding  it  tightly 
with  both  hands. 

Of  course  there  is  a  good  deal  that  goes  on  in 
the  meantime,  but  one  of  the  greatest  secrets  of 
successful  driving  is  to  avoid  monkeying  round 
with  your  grip  while  you  are  making  the  stroke. 
The  grip  with  which  you  left  the  ball  is  the  grip 
with  which  you  want  to  return  to  it.  There  must 
be  no  thought  of  any  modification  of  it,  any  loosen- 
ing up  here  or  tightening  there,  giving  the  fore- 
finger a  holiday  here  and  the  thumb  there.  Cut 
out  all  that  nonsense,  for  your  grip  is  your  grip, 
and,  once  having  taken  it,  you  must  abide  by  it. 

There  is  another  advantage  in  holding  firmly  to 
the  shaft  when  once  one  has  got  the  right  grip.  It 
does  not  give  one  so  much  chance  to  use  the  wrist 
wrongly,  which  is  an  outstanding  fault  with  begin- 
ners, especially  those  who  change  their  grip  as  the 
club  is  going  up  or  coming  down.  Moreover  it 
tends  to  prevent  over  swinging  which  comes  so 
naturally  to  those  who  loosen  up  and  lose  control 
of  the  club  at  that  most  critical  point,  the  top  of  the 
swing. 

Having  taken  a  firm  hold  of  the  club  with  both 
hands,  swing  it  easily  and  naturally  back  until  it 


THE  NEW  GOLF  125 

reaches  a  horizontal  position  behind  your  head  and 
within  a  few  inches  of  your  neck.  When  you  get 
up  to  this  position  you  will  still  have  a  firm  hold 
of  the  club,  it  will  be  pointing  towards  the  hole, 
the  shaft  being  nearly  parallel  to  the  line  from  the 
ball  to  the  hole  and  the  toe  of  it  will  be  hanging 
down  towards  the  earth  and  slightly  nearer  the  line 
of  flight  than  the  heel. 

Now,  in  bringing  the  club  up  to  this  position 
you  have  used  a  good  deal  of  what  is  called  wrist 
action,  only  it  is  not  wrist  action.  You  have 
turned  your  forearms.  Some  people  call  it  the 
roll  of  the  forearm.  Those  who  want  you  to  think 
they  know  a  lot  about  anatomy  talk  of  pronation 
and  supination.  The  roll  of  the  forearm  will  do 
for  us. 

If  you  have  allowed  your  forearms  to  roll  nat- 
urally, you  will  find  when  you  get  to  the  top  of  the 
swing  that  your  wrists  are  underneath  the  shaft 
of  the  club,  and  in  such  a  position  that  if  your  club 
were  an  ax,  you  could  strike  a  good  hefty  blow  at 
a  block  of  wood  in  a  line  with  your  right  shoulder 
and  about  four  feet  away  from  it.  This  is  a  good 
test  of  the  position  of  the  wrists.  Eemember,  that 
although  you  want  to  strike  the  ball  in  front  of 
you,  you  develop  your  power  precisely  as  though 
you  were  hitting  that  block  of  wood.  You  must 
not  try  to  get  to  the  ball  by  a  quicker  route  than 


126  THE  NEW  GOLF 

the  natural  track  of  the  club  head  which  is  very 
nearly  a  circle.  Do  not  cramp  either  of  the  arms, 
particularly  the  right.  Hugging  the  ribs  with  the 
right  elbow  was  once  a  fetich.  Avoid  it.  Nobody 
ever  saw  Vardon  do  it,  and  his  style  is  as  good  as 
any  to  go  by,  particularly  as  his  swing  is  of  the  up- 
right variety  and  therefore  the  safest  and  best  for 
golf,  as  the  club  head  remains  much  longer  in  the 
line  of  flight  than  in  the  flatter  swing  of  some  play- 
ers. I  have  never  been  able  to  see  any  advantage 
in  a  flat  swing.  I  have  never  seen  any  advantage 
claimed  for  it  by  any  one  entitled  to  speak  with 
authority;  and  those  famous  professionals  who 
use  it  do  not  advocate  it  in  preference  to  the  up- 
right swing,  which  I  feel  sure  is  most  suited  to  the 
great  majority  of  players  and  in  the  long  run  the 
best  for  the  game. 

It  is  usual  to  instruct  the  beginners  to  carry  the 
club  back  straight  from  the  ball,  as  far  as  one  can 
conveniently,  until  one's  arms  pull  it  off  the  line. 
It  is  doubtful  if  there  is  any  advantage  in  this. 
Probably  one  would  get  just  as  good  results  by 
letting  the  head  of  the  club  take  care  of  itself  and 
forgetting  all  about  this.  It  is  a  certainty  that  on 
the  return  journey  the  club  does  not  follow  this 
path,  and,  personally,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
this  part  of  the  stroke  may  well  be  forgotten.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  the  more  one  sees  of  golf  the  more 


THE  NEW  GOLF  127 

one  realizes  what  an  astounding  number  of  things 
there  are  that  one  can  with  much  profit,  directly 
one  addresses  one 's  ball — forget. 

It  is  customary  to  attempt  to  tell  one  where  this 
alleged  " wrist  action/'  this  roll  of  the  forearms — 
comes  in.  Any  one  who  strives  to  put  it  in  at  any 
particular  point  either  going  up  or  coming  down 
may  just  as  well  give  up  golf  and  look  for  some 
other  game.  It  is  a  perfectly  natural  movement 
distributed  over  practically  the  whole  " journey" 
of  the  forearms.  It  cannot  be  assigned  to  any  par- 
ticular place.  If  one  grips  one's  club  properly, 
and  maintains  one's  grip,  it  will  have  to  come  in  in 
its  right  place.  This  is  another  action  which  is  so 
perfectly  natural  that  it  may  soon  be  left  to  take 
care  of  itself. 

The  downward  swing. 

I  purposely  brought  my  readers  up  to  the  top 
of  the  swing  by  sections.  Going  down  I  may  not 
retain  that  plan  in  its  entirety.  It  is  not  so  neces- 
sary. I  am  of  opinion  that  arriving  at  the  correct 
position  at  the  top  of  the  swing  is  of  the  utmost 
importance.  I  think  that  if  a  player  achieves  that 
he  has  an  excellent  chance  for  the  rest  of  the  stroke. 

I  am  frequently  asked  how  the  downward  swing 
is  started.  I  am  making  in  this  book  a  statement 
about  it  that  is,  so  far  as  my  knowledge  of  golf 


128  THE  NEW  GOLF 

and  golf  writing  goes,  new,  but  I  believe  that  it  is 
sound.  The  downward  swing  in  a  drive  of  perfect 
rhythm  is,  I  believe,  started  by  the  player's  body 
before  the  upward  swing  is  completed  by  the  club 
having  dropped  to  its  lowest  point.  The  player's 
body  is  starting  to  "unwind,"  to  use  the  term  so 
often  employed  by  writers,  before  the  upward 
swing  of  the  club  is  finished.  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  this  is  to  a  great  extent  the  reason  that 
there  is  less  apparent  conflict  of  motion,  less  jerki- 
ness  than  one  might  expect,  at  this  point.  I  have 
mentioned  this  idea  to  one  player  of  great  experi- 
ence and  ability  and  he  agrees  with  me  that  it  is 
as  I  say.  Personally  I  should  like  to  experiment 
and  investigate  a  little  more  before  pronouncing 
authoritatively  on  this  interesting  point.  I  may 
say,  however,  that  the  motion  pictures  of  the 
famous  players  seem  to  lend  color  to  my  idea.  In 
many  cases  they  show  a  considerable  breadth  of 
the  back  before  the  club  has  got  to  the  lowest  point 
and  by  the  time  the  club  has  reached  the  lowest 
point  they  are  showing  much  less  of  the  back. 
This,  it  seems  to  me,  upholds  my  idea. 

Whether  this  is  so  or  not  there  is,  I  think,  no 
doubt  that  the  body  starts  the  downward  swing. 
I  have  read  a  good  deal  about  the  "hands  lead- 
ing." I  should  have  to  reorganize  all  my  ideas, 
not  only  of  golf,  but  of  almost  every  other  sport,  if 


THE  NEW  GOLF  129 

this  were  correct.  It  is  the  body  that  starts  nearly 
every  analogous  movement  in  athletics,  and  the 
drive  in  golf  is  not  a  law  unto  itself. 

Now  again  I  am  going  to  throw  my  readers  to  a 
great  extent  on  their  own  resources.  I  am  not 
going  to  make  any  attempt  to  tell  them  how  to 
"divide  up"  the  downward  stroke  so  far  as  re- 
gards the  arm  action.  If  the  ball  were  a  daisy 
one  would  not  want  such  instruction.  Why  should 
one  require  it  because  what  one  is  aiming  at  hap- 
pens to  be  a  golf  ball.  The  stroke  is  a  most  per- 
fectly natural  reversal  of  the  upward  movement 
with  the  roll  of  the  fore-arms  again  distributed.  It 
is  quite  futile  to  attempt  to  tell  any  one  "where  the 
wrists  come  in,"  because  nobody  can  do  it.  Even 
James  Braid  has  confessed  that  he  does  not  know. 

Harry  Vardon  is  not  a  believer  in  the  idea  of 
wrist  action.  At  page  70  of  The  Complete  Golfer 
he  says :  ' '  Now  pay  attention  to  the  wrists.  They 
should  be  held  fairly  tightly.  If  the  club  is  held 
tightly  the  wrists  will  be  tight,  and  vice  versa. 
When  the  wrists  are  tight  there  is  little  play  in 
them  and  more  is  demanded  of  the  arms.  I  do  not 
believe  in  the  long  ball  coming  from  the  wrists. 
In  defiance  of  principles  which  are  accepted  in 
many  quarters,  I  will  go  so  far  as  to  say  that, 
except  in  putting,  there  is  no  pure  wrist  shot  in 
golf.  Some  players  attempt  to  play  their  short 


i3o  THE  NEW  GOLF 

approach  with  their  wrists  as  they  have  been  told 
to  do.  These  men  are  likely  to  remain  at  long 
handicaps  for  a  long  time.  Similarly  there  is  a 
kind  of  a  superstition  that  the  elect  among  drivers 
get  in  some  peculiar  kind  of  'snap' — a  mo- 
mentary forward  pushing  movement — with  their 
wrists  at  the  time  of  impact,  and  that  it  is  this 
wrist  work  at  the  critical  period  which  gives  the 
grand  length  to  their  drives,  those  extra  twenty 
or  thirty  yards  which  make  the  stroke  look  so 
splendid,  so  uncommon,  and  which  make  the  next 
shot  so  much  easier.  Generally  speaking,  the 
wrists,  when  held  firmly,  will  take  very  good  care 
of  themselves." 

I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  quote  Vardon  in  demol- 
ishing the  absurd  idea  of  the  long  driver  getting 
his  power  from  his  wrists.  Whenever  any  one 
speaks  like  that  it  nearly  always  means,  if  one  only 
knew  it,  from  the  forearms.  Trying  to  put  one's 
wrists  into  the  downward  stroke  is  fatal  to  ac- 
curacy for  any  one  who  tries  to  do  it  at  the  wrong 
time.  Any  particular  thing  of  value  that  the 
wrists  do  they  do  at  the  beginning  of  the  down- 
ward swing.  Except  as  a  connecting  joint  they 
have  gone  out  of  business  long  before  the  ball  is 
reached. 

Braid  says:  " Where  exactly  the  wrists  begin 
to  do  their  proper  work  I  have  never  been  able  to 


THE  NEW  GOLF  131 

determine  exactly,  for  the  work  is  almost  instan- 
taneously brief !"  Well,  if  Braid  does  as  well  as 
he  does  without  knowing  anything  about  where  the 
wrists  come  in,  the  ordinary  golfer  may  take  heart 
of  grace  and  reflect  that  it  cannot  be  absolutely 
necessary  for  one  to  know.  As  a  matter  of  prac- 
tical golf  one  will  do  well  to  forget  that  one  has 
wrists,  except,  perhaps,  on  the  green. 

In  Advanced  Golf,  James  Braid  on  page  61  and 
in  the  preceding  pages  explains  that  the  whole  idea 
of  the  golf  stroke  is  supreme  tension,  and  that  at 
the  moment  of  impact  the  tension  is  greatest.  He 
says:  "Then  comes  the  moment  of  impact. 
Crack !  Everything  is  let  loose,  and  round  comes 
the  body  immediately  the  ball  is  struck  and  goes 
slightly  forward  until  the  player  is  facing  the  line 
of  flight. " 

I  want  my  readers  particularly  to  gather  the 
idea  of  "tension"  of  "supreme  tension. "  Braid 
condemns  the  idea  of  the  "even  acceleration  of 
speed"  that  we  hear  so  much  about.  His  advice 
is  so  valuable  that  I  must  quote  it :  "What  he  (the 
player)  has  to  concern  himself  with  is  not  getting 
his  speed  gradually,  but  getting  as  much  of  it  as 
he  possibly  can  right  from  the  top.  No  gentle 
starting,  but  hard  at  it  from  the  very  top,  and  the 
harder  you  start  the  greater  will  be  the  momentum 
of  the  club  when  the  ball  is  reached." 


132  THE  NEW  GOLF 

'  '  Hard  at  it  from  the  very  top ' '  is  good  advice 
in  driving.  As  Vardon  tells  us,  if  we  grip  tightly 
we  put  the  wrists  out  of  business.  Well,  we  don't 
require  to  think  of  them  in  any  way.  Anything 
that  they  do,  and  of  course  they  are  important,  is 
so  natural,  so  much  an  integral  portion  of  the  arm 
movement  that  it  is  practically  removed  from  the 
player's  field  of  inquiry. 

The  right  leg  and  hip-action. 

So  far  the  right  leg  has  not  had  much  attention. 
We  left  it  at  the  top  of  the  swing,  firmly  planted 
on  the  right  foot,  which  had  not  moved  in  the  up- 
ward swing,  and  full  of  that  torsional  strain, 
which,  as  we  have  already  seen,  is  so  often  mis- 
taken for  weight;  which,  in  fact,  in  my  opinion,  is 
responsible  for  all  the  false  teaching  about  the  dis- 
tribution of  weight  at  the  top  of  the  swing. 

Now,  however,  it  has  to  get  a  little  more  action. 
Almost  directly  the  club  starts  on  the  return  jour- 
ney to  the  ball  the  right  heel  begins  to  leave  the 
ground.  As  it  comes  up,  it  performs  a  most  pe- 
culiar function  in  the  swing  of  some  of  the  most 
famous  players.  It  pushes  the  hips  forward  to- 
wards the  hole.  This  is  easily  the  most  elusive  ac- 
tion, and  I  think  the  hardest  to  describe,  in  golf.  In 
Vardon 's  case  the  downward  stroke  is  scarcely 
more  than  a  fourth  of  the  way  through  before  this 


THE  NEW  GOLF  133 

peculiar  pushing  forward  of  the  hips  takes  place. 
Naturally  this  movement  brings  the  left  foot  down 
firmly  on  the  turf,  but  the  left  leg  does  not 
straighten  immediately.  It  remains  slightly  bent, 
while  at  the  same  time  the  right  heel  continues  to 
rise  so  as  to  enable  the  body  to  follow  through, 
which  it  does  easily  and  naturally,  nearly  all  the 
weight  going  on  to  the  left  foot  at  the  finish.  That 
is  the  way  Vardon  plays  the  stroke,  but  it  is  not 
the  way  in  which  many  of  the  best  players  in  the 
United  States  of  America  do  it.  They  have  a 
habit  of  cutting  off  the  transference  of  weight,  and 
very  few  of  them  have  the  hip  action  I  speak  of. 

Now,  this  hip  action  has  never  been  properly 
explained.  Vardon,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  has 
never  said  what  he  thinks  of  it  in  his  own  case, 
or  why  he  does  it.  I  do  not  wish  to  dogmatize 
about  this  hip  action,  but  I  believe  that  it  comes  in 
earlier  in  the  swing  than  I  have  indicated.  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  this  forward  push  of  the 
hips  sets  up  the  reciprocating  movement  of  the 
shoulders  and  so  throws  them  back  into  position 
so  that  Vardon  can  come  in  under  his  head  as  he 
does ;  in  other  words,  so  that  he  can  get  his  back 
into  it  in  his  own  inimitable  manner,  which  is  so 
closely,  yet  not  exactly,  followed  by  his  faithful 
disciple  and  admirer,  George  Duncan. 

I  do  not  care  to  speak  positively  about  this  char- 


i34  THE  NEW  GOLF 

acteristic  of  Vardon's  drive.  The  action  is  found 
in  nearly  every  upright  drive  of  good  rhythm,  so 
it  would  be  useless  to  overlook  it  in  an  analysis  of 
the  golf  stroke.  Something,  I  think,  it  must  add 
to  the  speed  and  also  the  accuracy  of  the  stroke. 
It  keeps  the  club  more  in  line  with  the  hole.  It 
makes  the  player  hit  more  under  his  body ;  in  other 
words,  get  his  back  muscles  into  the  stroke  and  it 
seems  as  though  it  gives  more  scope  for  the  right 
hand  "  punch. "  In  Vardon's  case  I  think  that  it 
gives  his  right  arm,  which  he  carries  fairly  wide 
of  his  body,  every  opportunity  to  get  all  the  speed 
possible  out  of  it  by  coming  through  with  the  blow 
delivered  for  a  long  distance  in  the  line  to  the 
hole. 

The  main  speed  of  the  golf  stroke  comes  out  of 
the  elbow  joint  and  the  turn  of  the  forearm.  The 
greatest  factor  probably,  almost  certainly,  is  the 
unflexing  of  the  right  elbow- joint.  It  seems  to  me 
that  if  the  golf  swing  can  be  so  played  as  to  have 
this  take  place  mainly  in  the  line  to  the  hole  it  is  an 
advantage. 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  this  hip  action  is 
necessary.  It  would  be  useless  for  many  to  at- 
tempt it.  The  downward  stroke  may  quite  well  be 
played  by  forgetting  about  the  hips,  except  in  so 
far  as  they  come  in  naturally,  and  letting  the  right 
heel  come  up  easily  and  gradually  in  the  downward 


THE  NEW  GOLF  135 

swing  while  the  left  is  sinking  back  to  its  original 
position  and  straightening  the  left  leg  again. 

The  impact. 

This  is  the  momentous  part  of  the  stroke.  What 
happens  during  the  fraction  of  an  inch  that  the 
club  and  ball  travel  together  in  adhesion,  means  as 
much  to  the  golf  ball  as  the  direction  of  the  barrel 
at  the  time  of  the  explosion  of  the  cartridge  does 
to  the  rifle  bullet. 

It  will  be  interesting  to  see  what  Yardon  says  of 
this  position:  "When  the  ball  has  been  struck, 
and  the  follow-through  is  being  accomplished,  there 
are  two  rules,  hitherto  held  sacred,  which  may  at 
last  be  broken.  With  the  direction  and  force  of 
the  swing  your  chest  is  naturally  turned  round  un- 
til it  is  facing  the  flag,  and  your  body  now  aban- 
dons all  restraint,  and  to  a  certain  extent  throws 
itself,  as  it  were,  after  the  ball.  There  is  a  great 
art  in  timing  this  body  movement  exactly.  If  it 
takes  place  the  fiftieth  part  of  a  second  too  soon 
the  stroke  will  be  entirely  ruined;  if  it  comes  too 
late  it  will  be  quite  ineffectual  and  will  only  result 
in  making  the  golfer  feel  uneasy,  and  as  if  some- 
thing had  gone  wrong.  When  made  at  the  proper 
instant  it  adds  a  good  piece  of  distance  to  the 
drive,  and  that  instant,  as  explained,  is  just  when 
the  club  is  following  through." 


136  THE  NEW  GOLF 

There  is  a  statement  in  this  quotation  that  I 
must  refer  to  in  passing.  Vardon  says  that  in  the 
follow-through  "your  body  now  abandons  all  re- 
straint. ' '  James  Braid  also  encourages  this  idea. 
I  think  that  it  is  both  a  bad  idea  and  impractical 
golf.  If  one  has  come  down  at  the  ball  at  full  ten- 
sion it  will  be  impossible  immediately  after  one  has 
hit  it  to  abandon  all  restraint,  nor  indeed  is  it  ad- 
visable to  do  so,  as  witness  the  fine  firm  finish  and 
beautiful  poise  with  which  Vardon  completes  his 
drive.  One  must  not  have  it  in  one's  mind  that 
the  tension  and  concentration  go  only  half  way 
through  the  swing.  I  am  afraid  that  that  would 
not  be  conducive  to  good  golf.  That,  however,  is 
by  the  way. 

The  important  point  for  us  to  consider  at  and 
about  the  impact  is  the  transference  of  the  weight. 
According  to  all  the  best  theory  it  is,  or  should  be, 
moving  from  the  right  leg  to  the  left  leg.  Instan- 
taneous pictures  of  Vardon  do  not  show  this  to  be 
the  case.  They  show  unmistakably  that  at  the  top 
of  his  swing  more  of  his  weight  is  on  his  left  leg 
than  on  his  right.  In  a  man  of  his  weight  there 
would  be  from  eight  to  twelve  pounds  more  on  the 
left  foot  than  on  the  right.  Then  we  see  that  he 
moves  his  hips  forward  suddenly.  This  sudden 
pushing  forward  of  the  hips  sets  up  the  recipro- 
cating motion  of  the  shoulders  that  I  have  referred 


I 

1° 

> 

I 


THE  NEW  GOLF  137 

to  and  probably  throws  back  to  the  right  leg  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  weight  which  comes  into  the  stroke 
at  the  moment  of  impact.  This  however  is  not  a 
certainty.  There  is  a  chance  here  for  some  one 
to  fit  my  machine  with  a  double  recording  needle 
that  will  catch  and  record  the  weight  on  the  right 
leg  at  the  top  of  the  swing  and  also  record  the 
highest  weight  thereafter  put  on  the  right  leg  dur- 
ing the  swing.  Before  one  could  speak  authori- 
tatively on  this  point  I  believe  that  this  would  have 
to  be  done.  The  scales  were  made  by  the  most 
famous  scales  makers  in  England,  but  they  could 
not  arrange  this  mechanism  for  me  in  time  for  our 
demonstration,  nor  for  the  purposes  of  that  de- 
monstration was  it  absolutely  necessary. 

The  chief  point  to  notice  in  Vardon's  statement 
about  the  management  of  the  body  weight  is  con- 
tained in  the  following  words.  He  says  that  it 
must  be  timed  to  the  minutest  fraction  of  a  second 
"  just  when  the  club  is  following  through." 

Now  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  timing  this  body 
movement  does  require  a  great  deal  of  skill;  so 
much  indeed  that  a  great  many  players  make  no 
conscious  effort  whatever  to  get  it,  and  finish  their 
stroke  with  their  heads  over  the  ball  and  the  arms 
going  away  on  their  own  account,  which  cannot 
be  considered  the  best  form.  It  is  however 
equally  certain  that  Vardon  makes  a  great  error 


i38  THE  NEW  GOLF 

when  lie  says  that  the  time  to  put  this  body  weight 
into  the  stroke  "is  just  when  the  club  is  following 
through. " 

From  the  first  instant  that  the  club  starts  "fol- 
lowing through "  it  has  absolutely  lost  any  power 
to  influence  the  flight  of  the  ball.  The  stroke  has 
been  played  and  nothing  that  the  player  can  do 
with  his  body  or  any  other  portion  of  his  anatomy 
can  affect  the  flight  of  the  ball  in  the  least  degree. 
The  moment  one  must  choose  for  endeavoring  to 
put  this  body  weight  into  the  blow  must  be  the  time 
during  which  the  club  is  making  the  last  two  or 
three  inches  before  it  hits  the  ball  and  then  the 
effort  must  not  be  made  at  that  time.  It  must  be 
a  portion  of  the  swing  naturally  and  harmoniously 
welded  into  it  to  come  in  at  this  instant.  Any 
other  way  of  trying  to  get  it  must  fail  and  will 
ruin  the  rhythm  of  the  swing.  The  main  point 
however  is  that  in  any  attempt  to  get  this  ex- 
tremely accurate  piece  of  timing  the  idea  in  one's 
mind  must  be  to  do  it  before  impact,  and  not,  as 
Vardon  explicitly  states,  "just  when  the  club  is 
following  through' ';  for  then  it  will  be  waste  ef- 
fort. 

The  head. 

I  have  not  had  much  to  say  about  the  head.  The 
fact  is  that  there  is  not  much  to  say  about  the  head 


THE  NEW  GOLF  139 

that  cannot  better  be  said  when  dealing  with  the 
function  of  the  eyes.  The  paramount  duty  of  the 
head  is  to  keep  still,  to  keep  in  the  place  it  was  in 
at  the  moment  of  address  both  as  regards  dis- 
tance from  the  hole  and  height  from  the  ground 
until  the  ball  has  been  struck.  Then,  and  then 
only,  is  it  released  and  allowed  to  become  a  portion 
of  the  movable  machinery  of  the  drive,  and  there 
are  not  wanting  those  who  wish  to  deny  it  this 
privilege.  However  we  shall  have  an  opportunity 
of  dealing  fully  with  this  aspect  of  the  case  when 
we  come  to  consider  in  a  future  chapter  what  the 
eyes  have  to  do. 

Summing  up. 

I  have  given  all  the  main  features  of  the  drive 
in  sections,  and  in  a  way  not  hitherto  done.  It 
must  be  learned  thoroughly  in  sections  unless  one 
is  lucky  enough  to  be  able  to  get  it  thoroughly  from 
some  first-class  player  by  imitating  him.  Golf 
however  is  such  a  scientific  game  that  if  one  trusts 
to  blind  copying  there  is  a  great  chance  that  the 
path  to  improvement  will  be  long  and  arduous. 
One  should  try  to  get  all  the  details  of  the  various 
movements  and  instructions  herein  set  out  stored 
away  in  one's  mind  so  that  there  is  no  conscious 
effort  to  produce  them  when  one  is  face  to  face 
with  the  ball.  This  is  much  easier  than  it  might 


i4o  THE  NEW  GOLF 

seem  for  there  is  herein  nothing  that  is  unnatural. 
That  is  the  great  point.  The  New  Golf  means 
following  nature  and  the  simple  truth,  and  not 
running  after  mystery  and  unnatural  methods. 

Let  us  sum  up  the  work  in  the  drive  now  as 
shortly  as  possible.  Prom  the  address  the  club 
is  picked  up,  after  the  press  forward.  At  the  same 
instant  the  left  heel  begins  to  rise.  The  club  is 
taken  back  on  the  upward  swing,  the  left  heel 
continuing  to  rise  and  the  left  knee  bending  in 
toward  the  ball  on  account  of  the  bending  of  the 
ankle  and  the  twist  of  the  instep,  but  the  front  part 
of  the  left  foot  remains  firmly  planted  on  the  earth 
so  that  the  weight  is  spread  across  it. 

As  the  left  hip  follows  the  left  knee  forward 
the  right  hip  is  drawn  back,  the  spine  remaining  in 
practically  the  same  position  all  the  time.  The 
right  foot  remains  solidly  and  firmly  planted  on 
the  ground  from  heel  to  toe  until  at  the  top  of 
the  swing  the  torsional  strain  caused  by  the  half 
twist  of  the  body  at  the  hips  can  be  very  distinctly 
felt,  in  fact  so  distinctly  that  the  leg  becomes  quite 
rigid  and  the  knee  joint  is  absolutely  stiff.  It  is 
not  bent  in  the  slightest  degree,  as  were  both  knees 
at  the  moment  of  address.  At  the  top  of  the  swing 
the  wrists  must  be  well  under  the  shaft  of  the  club. 
The  downward  swing  is  started  by  the  body  and 
the  hands  and  arms  follow,  reversing  the  motion 


THE  NEW  GOLF  141 

of  the  upward  swing.  Soon  after  the  beginning 
of  the  downward  swing  the  right  heel  begins  to 
leave  the  ground  the  hips  are  pushed  slightly  for- 
ward towards  the  hole  and  the  left  heel  begins 
to  return  to  the  earth  until  at  the  moment  of  im- 
pact it  has  settled  firmly  into  its  place  again, 
whereas  the  right  heel  is  up  a  little  and  the  right 
knee  bent  as  the  body  goes  forward  for  the  finish 
of  the  stroke  which  is  generally  a  little  across  the 
left  foot.  If  it  is  not  so  it  is  usually  an  indication 
that  the  player's  stance  was  at  first  too  open  or 
that  he  has  twisted  on  his  left  foot  during  the 
downward  swing,  which  is  to  be  avoided. 

I  have  possibly  omitted  some  slight  detail  in 
connection  with  the  drive  which  seemed  to  me  so 
obvious  as  not  to  need  any  special  mention.  If 
there  is  anything  of  this  nature  that  is  not  found 
in  the  letter  press  a  careful  study  of  the  photo- 
graphs will  no  doubt  repair  the  deficiency. 


CHAPTEE  IX 

THE  NIBLICK 

A  FAMOUS  Frenchman  was  once  talking  to  me 
about  golf.  He  is  a  great  swordsman  and  occupies 
an  important  position  in  one  of  the  greatest  firms 
in  France.  The  nature  of  his  work  brings  him 
constantly  face  to  face  with  many  mechanical 
problems.  He  had  attacked  golf  just  as  he  would 
have  undertaken  any  one  of  his  business  difficulties. 
I  was  astonished  to  find  how  much  he  had  learned 
in  his  short  acquaintance  with  the  game.  He 
knew  more  about  the  fundamental  principles  of 
it  than  most  men  who  had  played  for  more  years 
than  he  had  weeks. 

I  was  much  amused  at  one  of  his  remarks,  which 
has  in  it  a  great  lesson  for  lazy  learners.  "The 
bunker, "  he  said,  in  answer  to  my  question  as  to 
his  proficiency  with  the  niblick,  "does  not  annoy 
me  any  more.  I  knew  that  I  should  have  to  spend 
a  good  deal  of  my  time  there,  so  I  took  it  all  at 
once.  I  stayed  in  one  of  them,  the  worst  I  could 
find,  for  a  day.  Now  we  are  good  friends." 

142 


THE  NEW  GOLF  143 

I  feel  that  I  need  not  point  the  moral. 

The  first  thing  one  should  do  about  being 
bunkered  is  to  learn  not  to  be  angry  about  it.  It 
really  is  not  so  difficult  to  do  this  as  many  people 
think.  Many  bunker  shots  are  extremely  beauti- 
ful and  interesting,  and  if  one  were  playing  them 
merely  as  practise  or  in  demonstrating  the  shot 
to  a  friend  one  would  be  quite  pleased,  if  not 
indeed  proud,  to  make  them.  It  surely,  therefore, 
needs  no  argument  by  me  to  convince  any  one  that 
to  approach  the  bunker  as  a  friend,  who  will  give 
one  a  chance  to  show  one's  control  and  skill,  is 
much  better  than  coming  up  to  it  feeling  that  it  is  a 
thief  who  is  trying  to  steal  something  from  one. 
Unless  one  can  feel  like  this  about  the  bunker  one 
should  live  in  one  occasionally,  not  necessarily 
however  for  a  day  at  a  time. 

I  am  satisfied  that  this  matter  is  one  of  those 
that  had  better  be  left  to  the  player.  There  is  no 
place  like  the  bunker  for  instruction  as  to  how  to 
get  out  of  it.  There  are  however  some  quite  im- 
portant matters  that  I  may  refer  to  shortly. 

The  most  important  thing  when  one  is  in  a 
bunker — is  to  get  out.  No,  I  am  not  looking  for  a 
laugh  here.  Quite  a  number  of  people  do  not 
realize  this.  Many,  even  quite  good  golfers,  re- 
fuse to  accept  this  idea  as  practical  golf  and  in- 
sist on  "having  a  lash"  to  get  distance  when 


144  THE  NEW  GOLF 

obviously  the  right  thing  to  have  done  was  to  have 
played  to  get  out  and  into  position  for  the  next 
stroke. 

It  is  of  course  sometimes  possible  to  play  for 
distance  if  the  ball  happens  to  be  lying  well,  but 
this  is  exceptional.  Generally  one  has  to  make 
getting  out,  sometimes  with  a  bit  of  distance  in- 
cluded, sometimes  merely  getting  out  and  into  posi- 
tion, the  first  consideration. 

A  persistent  delusion  about  bunker  shots  is  that 
one  must  smite  the  sand  and  not  the  ball.  This 
has  been  carried  to  such  an  extent  that  people 
now  punch  the  sand  unnecessarily  far  behind  the 
ball.  In  very  many  cases  the  ball  can  be  played 
by  not  taking  the  sand  more  than  an  inch  or  so  from 
the  ball.  This  varies  of  course  with  the  state  of 
the  weather  and  the  character  of  the  sand,  clay, 
gravel  or  other  material  on  which  the  ball  is  lying. 
It  is  always  well  to  aim  behind  the  ball,  quite  apart 
from  any  other  consideration,  for,  as  one  is  not 
allowed  to  ground  one's  club  in  a  bunker,  there  is 
always  a  slight  tendency  not  to  get  right  down  to 
the  stroke. 

Many  of  the  best  bunker  shots  are  played  by  a 
cut  shot,  the  niblick  being  swung  across  from  right 
to  left.  This  cut  gives  a  very  quick  rise. 

In  many  cases  one  has  to  trust  to  a  downright 
punch  into  the  sand  in  which  the  ball  is  knocked 


THE  NEW  GOLF  145 

out  of  the  bunker  by  the  concussion  of  the  blow 
and  not  by  contact  with  the  club. 

If  ever  there  was  a  case  which  should  teach  the 
golfer  to  trust  the  loft  of  his  club  this  is  it.  The 
greatest  secret  in  getting  up  and  out  of  a  bunker 
is  knowing  how  to  hit  down  hard  enough.  One 
simply  has  to  put  all  one's  strength  into  the  sand, 
thrash  at  it  with  wrists  and  arms  like  steel  as  if 
one  intended  to  go  on  for  a  foot  or  two  into  it. 
There  must  be  no  idea  of  turning  the  face  of  the 
club  up  as  we  are  sometimes  told.  Leave  the  loft 
to  attend  to  itself  and  give  the  sand  or  other  stuff 
the  hardest  punch  you  know  how  and  don't  do 
anything  to  stop  that  punch.  Let  the  bunker 
absorb  the  follow-through.  Unless  you  do  this  the 
stroke  is  not  likely  to  be  a  success. 

The  variety  of  bunker  shots  is,  however,  so 
great  that  each  one  probably  presents  some  point 
in  stance,  grip,  swing  or  something  else  that  can 
only  be  properly  explained  at  the  time  in  the 
bunker.  Therefore,  get  thee  to  a  bunker,  prefer- 
ably with  a  wise  friend,  but  if  such  a  one  is  not 
available,  still,  get  thee  to  a  bunker,  with  a  trusty 
niblick  and  try  the  prescription  of  our  French 
friend. 

If  one  is  lucky  enough  to  have  a  lie  which  gives 
a  fairly  good  chance  of  getting  any  distance,  when 
distance  is  desired,  one  must  remember  that  there 


i46  THE  NEW  GOLF 

is  always  a  better  chance  of  clearing  the  hazard 
if  one  plays  the  shot  with  some  cut  or  slice.  This 
must,  however,  depend  in  every  case  on  the  nature 
and  position  of  the  lie  and  the  direction  desired. 

In  playing  any  of  these  cut  shots  in  a  bunker, 
with  any  kind  of  a  club,  there  must  be  no  attempt 
whatever  to  do  what  one  is  so  often  told  to  do, 
namely,  to  draw  the  club  in  towards  one  at  the 
moment  of  impact.  Even  when  one  is  hitting  the 
ball  cleanly — and  this  is  occasionally  done  in 
bunkers,  although  to  read  most  books  and  articles 
one  would  think  otherwise — it  is  fatal  to  attempt 
to  pull  the  club  across  the  ball  at  the  moment  of 
impact.  I  need  hardly  say  what  it  would  be  if 
the  same  attempt  were  made  with  an  ounce  or  two 
of  sand  between  the  ball  and  the  club. 


CHAPTEE  X 

THE   MASTER   STROKE 

WHEN  Harry  Vardon  published  The  Complete 
Golfer,  he  said  that  in  his  opinion  the  master  stroke 
of  the  game  was :  ".  .  .  the  ball  struck  by  any  club 
to  which  a  big  pull  or  slice  is  intentionally  applied 
for  the  accomplishment  of  a  specific  purpose  which 
could  not  be  achieved  in  any  other  way. ' ' 

What  he  says  about  it  is  interesting  enough  to 
quote  fully.  At  page  86  of  The  Complete  Golfer  he 
says:  "What,  then,  is  the  master  stroke?  I  say 
that  it  is  the  ball  struck  by  any  club  to  which  a  big 
pull  or  slice  is  intentionally  applied  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  a  specific  purpose  which  could 
not  be  achieved  in  any  other  way;  and  nothing 
more  exemplifies  the  curious  waywardness  of  this 
game  of  ours  than  the  fact  that  the  stroke  which 
is  the  confounding  and  torture  of  the  beginner 
who  does  it  constantly,  he  knows  not  why,  but  al- 
ways to  his  detriment,  should  later  on  at  times 
be  the  most  coveted  shot  of  all  and  should  then  be 
the  most  difficult  of  accomplishment.  I  call  it  the 

147 


i48  THE  NEW  GOLF 

master  shot,  because  to  acomplish  it  with  any 
certainty  and  perfection  is  so  difficult,  even  to  the 
experienced  golfer,  because  it  calls  for  the  most 
absolute  command  over  the  club  and  every  nerve 
and  sinew  of  the  body,  and  the  courageous  heart 
of  the  true  sportsman  whom  no  difficulty  may 
daunt,  and  because,  when  properly  done,  it  is  a 
splendid  thing  to  see,  and  for  a  certainty  results 
in  material  gain  to  the  man  who  played  it. ' ' 

It  would  be  hard  indeed  to  find  a  more  outspoken 
or  enthusiastic  declaration  in  favor  of  the  pull  and 
the  slice  as  the  master  strokes  in  golf. 

J.  H.  Taylor  is  not  at  all  enthusiastic  about  these 
strokes.  He  says  at  page  88  of  Taylor  on  Golf: 
"  Still  it  is  not  advisable,  neither  do  I  look  upon 
it  as  being  golf  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  word,  for 
the  knack  of  pulling  or  slicing  to  be  cultivated,  as 
I  am  afraid  it  is  by  a  great  many  players.  No 
compromise  should  be  made  with  a  fault. " 

As  I  write  this  my  mind  runs  back  to  a  glorious 
summer  afternoon  at  Mid  Surrey,  Taylor's  famous 
home  course.  Coming  to  one  of  the  greens  Taylor 
got  off  the  line  a  bit  and  for  his  approach  found 
his  way  to  the  green  blocked  by  a  great  tree.  I 
had  taken  a  friend  down  to  see  the  match,  but  I 
forget  who  Taylor's  opponent  was. 

" Watch  him  cut  round  the  tree,"  I  said.  "He 
can  just  about  swerve  to  the  edge  of  the  green  and 


.s -a, 


THE  NEW  GOLF  149 

then  Ms  cut  will  carry  him  in  near  the  pin."  I 
knew  what  Taylor  could  do  with  his  mashie.  He 
did  it. 

He  played  a  beautiful  cut  shot  that  swept  past 
the  tree,  curled  a  little  in  its  flight,  dropped  on 
the  edge  of  the  very  large  green,  then  took  its 
side  roll  and  ran  in  nearly  to  the  hole.  It  was  a 
perfect  approach,  yet  without  the  slice — for  cut 
(except  back-cut)  in  golf  is  merely  slice  by  another 
name  and  with  a  different  club,  and  what  one  wants 
to  do  with  a  mashie  to-day  he  may  want  to  do  with 
a  brassy  to-morrow — it  would  have  been  impossi- 
ble. 

It  is  however  interesting  to  have  the  different 
views  of  such  famous  players.  It  is  indeed  true 
that  if  one  plays  golf  as  one  should  play  it  one  will 
not  often  require  to  slice  or  pull,  for  such  strokes 
are  generally  in  the  nature  of  atonement,  or  at- 
tempted atonement,  for  some  previous  error;  but 
then  who,  among  us,  does  play  golf  as  one  should 
play  it.  Therefore  it  seems  that  we  must  continue 
to  recognize  the  existence  of  the  pull  and  the  slice 
but  we  must  also  try  to  relegate  them  to  their 
proper  places  in  the  game. 

In  1909  I  said  that  if  I  had  to  name  a  stroke  in 
golf  as  the  master  stroke,  other  than  the  simple 
put,  I  should  name  the  "wind  cheater,"  or  the 
class  of  strokes  that  now  come  in  under  the  mis- 


150  THE  NEW  GOLF 

nomer  of  '  *  push. ' '  I  am,  and  have  been  for  years, 
of  opinion  that  the  most  valuable  spin  in  golf  is 
backspin.  For  one  most  important  reason  I  put 
strokes  of  this  class  ahead  of  the  pull  and  the  slice. 
They  are  infinitely  more  reliable.  The  spin  does 
not  affect  their  direction.  It  merely  affects  the 
trajectory,  and  on  that  it  has  a  very  beneficial 
effect. 

In  Harry  Vardon's  latest  book  How  to  Play  Golf 
he  comes  round  entirely  to  my  point  of  view  and 
declares  outright  and  without  any  qualification 
that  in  his  opinion  the  push  stroke  is  the  master 
stroke  in  golf.  He  also  explains  how  it  is  played, 
or  rather,  perhaps  I  should  say,  how  he  thinks  it 
is  played.  I  put  it  this  way,  for  I  think  that  his 
explanation  of  the  stroke  is  one  of  the  most  mar- 
velous mistakes  that  has  ever  been  associated  with 
the  name  of  a  famous  player. 

Vardon  says  that  the  stroke  is  played  by  coming 
down  on  the  ball  with  the  face  of  the  club  over- 
hanging it  and  then,  just  at  the  moment  of  impact, 
twisting  the  club  vigorously  round  the  ball  so  as 
to  produce  the  necessary  amount  of  backspin. 

The  proper  method  of  playing  this  beautiful  and 
useful  stroke  provided  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
controversies  in  the  history  of  English  golf.  Some 
of  the  explanations  that  were  given  were  simply 
amazing,  while  some  were  also  extremely  amusing. 


THE  NEW  GOLF  151 

The  fact  that  Vardon  now  considers  this  stroke 
the  master  stroke  in  golf  warrants  our  giving  it 
the  closest  analysis  and  attention.  Whatever  one 
thinks  of  Vardon 's  explanation  one  can  have  noth- 
ing but  admiration  for  his  execution  of  this  beauti- 
ful stroke. 

He  will  place  a  ball  on  the  turf  and  show  you 
the  spot  in  front  of  the  ball  where  he  will  cut  the 
turf  after  he  has  sent  the  ball  on  its  way,  and  he 
will  do  this  with  mathematical  accuracy,  but  he 
does  this  by  nature  and  not  by  his  published  theory 
of  the  stroke,  which  is  not  practical  golf,  which  is 
in  fact  impossible  of  accomplishment  by  any  one — 
even  a  Vardon. 

I  may  explain  in  the  first  place  how  Vardon 
plays  the  shot  in  so  far  as  regards  those  portions 
of  it  that  are  not  the  subject  of  controversy.  Ac- 
cording to  one  of  his  regular  chroniclers  he  uses 
a  cleek  that  is  somewhat  shorter  than  his  ordinary 
club  and  with  a  more  upright  lie  and  greater  loft. 
It  is  also  somewhat  deeper  in  the  face.  The  up- 
right lie  naturally  brings  him  in  more  over  the 
ball.  He  addresses  the  ball  so  that  his  hands  are 
several  inches  in  front  of  it.  At  the  top  of  the 
swing  his  weight  is  well  forward.  Then  he  comes 
down  on  the  ball  and  hits  it  very  hard  so  that  it 
bounces  off  the  ground ! 

I  am  not  responsible  for  any  of  this  description, 


1 52  THE  NEW  GOLF 

but  it  is  practically  correct  until  we  come  to  the 
last  statement — which  we  may  kindly  forget. 

The  storm  of  controversy  centered  about  what 
happened  at  the  moment  of  impact.  I  must  try  to 
explain  that  as  simply  and  shortly  as  possible 
and  then  show  the  result  of  the  stroke. 

The  master  stroke  in  golf,  which  is  called  the 
"push,"  when  played  with  a  cleek,  and  a  "wind 
cheater,"  or  something  else,  when  played  with  a 
wooden  club,  although  it  is  essentially  the  same 
stroke,  is  simply  a  descending  blow.  The  ball  is 
struck  by  the  club  before  it  has  reached  the  lowest 
point  in  its  swing.  That  really  covers  the  whole 
ground,  and  had  it  not  been  for  the  wonderful 
statements  that  have  been  made  about  the  stroke 
it  would  hardly  be  necessary  to  amplify  it. 

Although  the  stroke  is  a  descending  blow  the 
club  must  reach  the  ball  in  such  a  manner  that  the 
loft  can  act  on  the  ball  by  hitting  it  beneath  the 
center  of  its  mass  and  with  the  face  of  the  club 
inclined  backward.  It  is  obvious  that  unless  this 
were  done  the  ball  would  not  rise. 

The  loft  of  the  club  is  lessened  by  the  fact  that 
one  addresses  the  ball  with  the  hands  forward 
of  the  club  by  about  two  or  three  inches.  The 
object  of  this  is  to  regulate  the  swing  of  the  club 
so  that  it  reaches  its  lowest  point  about  where  one 
usually  addresses  the  ball.  This  means  that  it 


THE  NEW  GOLF  153 

passes  across  the  back  of  the  ball  on  its  way  down 
to  the  lowest  point  in  the  swing  and  cuts  or  should 
cut  or  graze  the  turf  an  inch  or  so  in  front  of 
where  the  ball  lay  before  it  was  struck.  The 
finish  of  the  stroke  is  low  and  the  head  of  the 
club  should  follow  out  down  the  line  to  the  hole 
as  much  as  possible.  The  stroke  is  in  fact  a  chop. 
It  is  if  possible  more  of  a  hit  than  other  iron 
strokes.  A  player  might  get  a  better  idea  of  it  if 
he  were  told  to  ' '  rap '  '  it.  I  heard  that  somewhere 
once,  and  the  underlying  idea  seemed  good  to  me. 
There  probably  is  no  stroke  in  golf  where  one 
seems  to  finish  on  the  ball  more.  This  is  no  doubt 
on  account  of  the  force  which  goes  into  the  down- 
ward hit.  One  must  hit  this  ball  for  all  one  is 
worth  and  leave  the  earth  or  anything  else  that 
comes  in  the  way  to  absorb  all  the  shock  that  is 
not  taken  up  by  the  ball. 

The  flight  of  this  ball  and  the  run  thereof  are 
truly  remarkable.  When  one  realizes  what  there 
is  in  them  for  the  ardent  golfer,  if  one  is  an  ardent 
golfer,  one  is  indeed  stupid  not  to  try  to  cultivate 
the  stroke. 

The  ball  goes  away  from  the  club,  when  the 
stroke  has  been  properly  played,  with  a  lot  of  back- 
spin.  On  account  of  the  forward  position  of  the 
hands  and  the  consequent  reduction  of  the  loft  of 
the  club  the  first  part  of  the  flight  is  very  low. 


154  THE  NEW  GOLF 

It  maintains  this  low  path  for  a  considerable 
distance,  rising  very  gradually  until  the  pace  be- 
gins to  decrease.  Then  the  backspin  begins  to 
exert  its  influence.  In  this  case  the  lower  portion 
of  the  ball  is  naturally  the  forward-spinning  part. 
Therefore  most  of  the  friction  is  underneath.  This 
friction  now  begins  to  force  the  ball  gradually 
upward  in  a  beautiful  curve.  Soon  the  power  of 
the  spin  is  diminished  and  as  the  force  of  the  blow 
is  also  dying  away,  the  ball,  still  with  some  back- 
spin  on  it,  begins  to  fall.  The  friction  on  the  un- 
derneath side  of  the  ball  is  now  if  anything  shifted 
a  little  farther  backward  on  the  ball  on  account 
of  the  change  of  direction.  This  tends  to  keep  the 
ball  edging  onward. 

Now  the  backspin  is  almost  exhausted,  and  when 
the  ball  finally  pitches  all  that  remains  of  it  is 
probably  instantaneously  killed,  for  the  trajectory 
of  the  ball,  notwithstanding  its  rise  toward  the  end 
of  the  carry,  is  always  low.  There  is  nothing 
therefore  in  this  ball,  notwithstanding  its  back- 
spin,  to  prevent  its  being  a  good  runner,  which  it 
frequently  is. 

An  analysis  of  the  beneficial  qualities  of  the 
backspin  and  its  application  in  this  stroke  will  I 
think  be  found  to  justify  my  old-standing  claim  on 
its  behalf.  Firstly,  its  low  carry  is  always  a  great 
point  in  its  favor  even  in  calm  weather.  Against 


THE  NEW  GOLF  155 

the  wind  it  requires  no  recommendation.  It  was 
its  great  ability  to  face  a  wind  that  got  this  stroke, 
off  the  wood,  its  old  name  of  "wind  cheater. " 
Now  one  hears  ad  nauseam  of  this  stroke  as  "the 
push,"  but  one  may  search  any  book  on  advanced 
golf  for  an  explanation  of  this  great  drive  or 
brassy  shot  and  get  but  little  for  one's  pains. 

Off  the  tee  it  is  a  splendid  stroke  and  it  may 
with  advantage  be  played  from  a  high  tee.  This 
was  regarded  some  years  ago  as  a  fanciful  notion. 
A  high  tee  for  a  low  ball !  Whoever  heard  of  such 
an  idea!  Now  one  of  the  most  famous  of  the 
continental  golfers  gets  a  consistently  low  ball 
from  a  high  tee.  It  is  obvious  that  if  one  tees 
high  for  this  stroke  one  has  a  greater  distance 
wherein  to  pass  down  across  the  ball.  It  is  this 
passing  down  that  gives  the  beneficial  backspin 
of  golf  so  those  who  want  extra  distance  and  a 
low  ball  from  the  tee  may  take  a  little  more  sand. 
This  is  merely  another  case  of  loft.  If  the  face 
of  the  club  is  right  at  the  moment  of  impact  it 
will  not  matter  if  the  ball  is  three-eighths  of  an 
inch  off  the  ground  or  five-eighths. 

After  the  low  flight  has  served  its  purpose  we 
see  the  backspin  getting  to  work  and  assisting  to 
raise  the  ball  to  the  top  of  what  one  might  almost 
call  its  secondary  trajectory,  and  when  the  force  of 
the  blow  and  the  spin  together  are  no  longe;r 


156  THE  NEW  GOLF 

enough  to  keep  the  ball  up  we  see  it,  still  with  a 
low  flight  at  the  end  of  its  carry,  approaching 
the  ground  at  an  angle  that  will  surely,  on  its 
striking  the  fairway,  be  sufficient  to  kill  the  remains 
of  the  backspin  and  ensure  a  good  run.  If  any 
one  can  show  me  a  ball  that  possesses  the  same 
ideal  qualities  for  golf  as  this  I  shall  have  to 
readjust  my  ideas,  but  until  then  I  shall  remain 
loyal  to  this  stroke  and  indeed  to  this  class  of 
strokes  as  the  master  strokes  of  golf,  and  this  I 
believe  is  true  of  the  strokes  be  they  off  iron  or 
wood,  half,  three-quarter  or  full,  for  when  we  get 
into  the  restricted  shot  we  find  the  influence  of 
the  backspin  asserting  itself  on  the  ball's  pitching, 
and  thus  giving  the  skilful  player  an  amazing 
control  of  his  approach  shots. 

I  do  not  think  that  it  is  necessary  for  me  to  add 
anything  to  my  explanation  of  the  push  shot.  I 
have  referred  to  Vardon's  explanation  of  it  in 
How  to  Play  Golf.  I  speak  now  from  memory, 
but  there  was  something  in  that  book  that  has  al- 
ways been  a  puzzle  to  me.  Vardon  refers  to  James 
Braid  as  being  the  greatest  master  of  the  push 
stroke.  He  may  be.  I  never  saw  Braid  get  his 
low  ball  except  with  a  slight  pull.  I  have  never 
seen  him  play  a  genuine  push  stroke,  I  never  heard 
that  he  does  it,  nor  have  I  ever  read  of  his  doing 
so,  and  in  Advanced  Golf,  where  one  might  rea- 


THE  NEW  GOLF  157 

sonably  expect  to  find  this  stroke  explained,  he  does 
not  elucidate  it,  nor  does  he  do  so  in  How  to  Play 
Golf. 

If  Vardon  is  correct  in  his  statement  that  Braid 
is  the  greatest  master,  amongst  professional 
golfers,  of  the  push  stroke,  he  must  recognize  at 
once  the  hopelessness  of  his  explanation  of  how 
to  play  the  push,  for  Braid,  in  Advanced  Golf,  ex- 
plicitly tells  us  that  trying  to  do  anything  during 
impact  such  as  that  suggested  by  Vardon  is  quite 
futile. 

Vardon 's  description  in  How  to  Play  Golf  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  push  shot  is  played  is  so  re- 
markable that  I  reproduce  it  here.  He  says : 

"While  it  is  a  shot  for  any  club,  the  cleek  is  per- 
haps the  best  implement  with  which  to  begin  prac- 
tising it.  Before  proceeding  to  describe  how  it 
is  done,  let  me  explain  in  a  few  words  the  idea  of 
the  stroke.  What  happens  (at  least,  so  I  feel  con- 
vinced, although  nobody  sees  it  happen)  is  that  the 
ball  is  made  to  spin  slightly  up  the  face  of  the 
club  at  the  instant  of  impact.  The  golfer  has 
no  need  to  worry  about  producing  this  effect;  it 
will  come  if  he  accomplish  the  shot  properly.  That 
is  the  essence  of  the  shot;  it  produces  the  back- 
spin  while  the  power  of  the  blow  naturally  sends 
the  ball  forward.  Now  as  to  the  way  to  obtain 
the  effect ;  a  way  that  must  be  precise,  although  it 


158  THE  NEW  GOLF 

is  not  nearly  so  difficult  a  problem  as  it  may  look 
on  paper.  The  swing  must  be  distinctly  more 
upright  than  for  the  ordinary  cleek  shot.  The 
club  must  go  up  straighter  than  for  any  other 
stroke  in  the  game,  and,  that  being  so,  nothing 
more  than  a  three-quarter  swing  should  be  per- 
mitted. The  uprightness  of  the  swing  will  de- 
mand a  closer  stance  than  for  the  ordinary  cleek 
shot.  The  player  should  be  several  inches  nearer 
to  the  ball  because,  instead  of  swinging  the  club 
round  to  it  with  a  purely  propelling  action,  he  is 
going  to  endeavor  to  come  down  on  to  the  side  of 
the  ball,  if  I  may  so  explain  it.  This  sounds,  I 
know,  only  about  one  degree  removed  from  an  in- 
centive to  topping.  It  is  likely  that  the  golfer 
will  go  through  a  period  of  that  painful  purgatory 
in  his  early  efforts  to  execute  the  shot,  but  it  will 
be  solely  attributable  to  his  failure  to  use  his  body 
and  wrists  in  the  correct  way  at  the  time  of  impact. 
It  is  quite  clear  that  the  simple  propelling  influence 
will  not  produce  the  essential  backspin.  The  face 
of  the  club  must  come  down  broadside  on  to  the 
ball  so  as  to  make  the  latter  run  up  the  face  of 
the  implement,  thus  imparting  the  spin  while  the 
forward  movement  is  in  progress. 

"We  left  ourselves  standing  closer  to  the  ball 
than  for  the  ordinary  cleek.  The  stance,  too, 
should  be  distinctly  more  forward.  In  no  circum- 


THE  NEW  GOLF  159 

stances  should  the  hands  be  behind  the  ball  during 
the  address ;  indeed,  they  must  be  an  inch  or  two  in 
front  of  it.  Moreover,  the  eyes  must  be  f ocussed, 
not  on  the  turf  immediately  behind  the  object,  but 
on  that  extremity  of  the  ball  itself  which  is  far- 
thest from  the  hole.  During  the  address,  our  range 
of  vision,  so  far  as  we  are  conscious  of  it,  should 
end  half-way  down  the  ball — on  the  pimple  that  is 
protruding  farthest  away  from  the  hole  (if  we  are 
using  a  ball  of  pimple  marking).  When  we  play 
an  ordinary  cleek  shot,  we  graze  the  turf  several 
inches  behind  the  ball  so  as  to  make  the  loft  of  the 
club  do  its  work  immediately.  With  the  push- 
shot,  we  obtain  the  loft  in  a  different  way.  In  an 
infinitesimal  period  something  happens  which  pro- 
duces back-spin  before  the  action  of  raising  the 
ball  has  time  to  take  effect.  What  we  want  to  do 
is  to  bring  the  instrument  down  so  that  the  hind- 
most part  of  the  ball  is  struck  at  a  point  of  the 
club's  face  which  is  rather  nearer  to  the  sole  than 
the  top.  In  a  way,  then,  we  want  to  come  down 
half  on  top  of  the  ball.  We  have  seen  that  our 
hands  are  in  front  of  it,  so  that  when  the  contact 
is  made  at  the  rearmost  part  of  the  ball  (not  under 
it),  more  than  half  of  the  club  as  between  the  sole 
and  the  top  is  tilted,  so  to  speak,  over  the  ball.  I 
need  scarcely  say  that  this  position  is  of  the 
shortest  instant's  duration.  We  are  not  going  to 


i6o  THE  NEW  GOLF 

stand  and  reflect  on  it;  we  have  no  time  even  to 
catch  a  glimpse  of  it.  Nevertheless,  the  securing 
of  it  is  the  first  essential  of  the  shot ;  this  is  a  fact 
upon  which  I  imagine  all  good  exponents  of  the 
push  stroke  have  satisfied  themselves. 

1 1  Now  as  to  the  simultaneous  yet  rhythmic  move- 
ments which  complete  the  shot.  At  the  moment  of 
impact  (right  at  that  instant;  not  the  smallest 
fraction  of  a  second  earlier  or  later)  the  player 
should  straighten  the  elbows,  stiffen  the  wrists, 
and  let  the  body  go  forward  a  few  inches  with  the 
club.  The  quick  action  of  the  elbows  and  wrists 
will  push  the  face  of  the  club  under  the  ball  as 
both  go  forward,  and  the  body  moving  slightly 
in  the  same  direction  will  assist  in  the  project. 
The  ground  will  be  grazed  the  smallest  distance 
imaginable  in  front  of  the  place  where  the  ball 
was  reposing.  The  follow- through  should  not  be 
arrested ;  indeed,  it  should  be  encouraged,  because 
the  wrists  and  elbows  must  relax  to  the  normal  the 
instant  they  have  executed  the  push;  but,  in  the 
ordinary  way,  the  follow-through  will  not  be  so 
full  as  in  ordinary  shots. 

"I  need  scarcely  say  that  the  secret  of  success  is 
to  make  the  various  movements  synchronize  to  per- 
fection. The  arms  must  straighten,  the  wrists 
must  tighten,  and  the  body  must  move  forward  at 
the  exact  time  when  the  club  meets  the  ball.  The 


THE  NEW  GOLF  161 

effect  will  be  readily  perceived.  The  club-face 
will  be  turned  under  the  ball,  while  picking  it  up 
cleanly.  The  two  will  be  in  contact  for  a  period 
not  long  enough  to  be  noticed,  but  sufficiently  ap- 
preciable for  the  ball  to  run  up  the  face  of  the 
implement  as  it  is  being  urged  forward.  Thus 
will  be  produced  the  back-spin.  A  tight  grip  is 
necessary,  and  I  may  perhaps  repeat  the  warning 
that  directly  the  impact  is  complete  the  elbows 
and  wrists  should  relax  so  as  to  facilitate  the  fol- 
low-through. They  will  have  done  their  work. 

' '  This  description  may  make  the  shot  appear  like 
a  piece  of  jugglery,  but  it  is  a  faithful  explanation 
of  the  stroke  as  I  play  it  myself,  and  as  I  have 
seen  others  play  it.  From  time  to  time  I  have 
observed  in  responsible  papers  articles  dealing 
with  the  push-shot,  and  giving  wrong  impressions 
of  its  character.  Thus  I  have  read  on  more  than 
one  occasion  that  rudimentary  mechanics  prove 
beyond  all  question  that,  in  order  to  raise  a  ball 
into  the  air  and  obtain  an  accurate  and  adequate 
flight,  it  is  necessary  for  the  club  to  make  the  im- 
pact below  the  center  of  the  ball.  I  do  not  profess 
to  know  much  about  the  science  of  mechanics,  but 
I  am  sure  that  I  know  how  the  push-shot  is  played. 
If,  at  the  outset,  you  were  to  strike  the  ball  below 
the  center,  you  would  not  impart  much  back-spin 
to  it.  You  might  obtain  a  little,  but  the  effort 


162  THE  NEW  GOLF 

would  be  hardly  distinguishable  from  an  ordinary 
lofting  shot.  What  you  have  to  do  is  to  bring  the 
face  of  the  club  down  to  the  ball  at  the  center  of 
its  mass,  and  then,  by  that  simultaneous  stiffening 
of  the  elbows,  tightening  of  the  wrists,  and  push- 
ing forward  of  the  body,  make  the  face  of  the  im- 
plement run  almost  half-way  round  the  ball.  It 
has  been  said  that  it  is  impossible  for  me  or  any- 
body else  to  observe  what  happens  at  the  instant 
when  the  club  and  the  ball  come  into  contact.  I  am 
free  to  confess  that  it  is  impossible  to  see  the  club 
hit  the  ball.  Let  me,  however,  discuss  the  matter 
from  another  standpoint.  A  good  player  always 
knows  what  he  is  trying  to  do,  no  matter  what  club 
he  has  in  his  hands.  If  he  repeatedly  hits  the 
shots  just  as  he  tries  to  hit  them,  he  knows  that  he 
is  using  the  club  and  striking  the  ball  in  just  the 
manner  that  he  has  conceived  for  the  occasion. 
Otherwise  we  should  have  to  arrive  at  the  con- 
clusion that  all  his  satisfactory  strokes  were  flukes, 
because  he  had  endeavored  to  accomplish  the  thing 
in  a  certain  way  and  had  obtained  the  desired 
result  by  unwittingly  doing  something  else.  That, 
surely,  would  be  absurd.  Consequently,  although 
it  is  true  that  I  do  not  see  the  club  hit  the  ball,  I 
know  that  the  push-shot  is  obtained  in  the  manner 
which  I  have  described.  I  have  dealt  fully  with 
the  subject,  and  endeavored  to  correct  wrong  im- 


THE  NEW  GOLF  163 

pressions,  because  I  feel  that  the  'push'  is  now 
the  master  shot  in  golf,  and  the  stroke  which  all 
good  amateurs  ought  to  practise  if  they  take  to 
heart  the  frequent  reproach  that  the  standard  of 
their  play  is  falling  below  that  of  professional 
golf." 

One  might  perhaps  be  pardoned  for  asking,  if 
the  cleek  is  to  "run  almost  half-way  round  the 
ball, ' '  what  happens  to  the  shaft  of  the  club  when 
the  back  of  the  club  head,  during  impact,  remember, 
is  presented  to  the  hole,  and  how  it  is  possible,  in 
such  an  event,  for  the  ball  to  start  its  flight  low,  as 
this  shot  always  does. 

One  would,  out  of  consideration  for  Vardon, 
have  omitted  his  wonderful  description  if  he  had 
not  explicitly  stated  that  the  ability  to  play  this 
shot  well  is  the  one  thing  that  keeps  the  profes- 
sionals '  golf  superior  to  that  of  the  amateurs. 

It  then  became  my  duty  to  submit  his  explana- 
tion of  it  and  mine.  I  must  leave  it  to  the  intelli- 
gence of  golfers  to  decide  which  is  correct. 


CHAPTEE  XI 

THE    SLICE 

THE  slice  is  a  very  useful  shot  when  one  can 
control  it.  Unfortunately  very  few  players  can 
control  it,  although  a  vast  number  can  produce  it 
— when  they  do  not  want  to  do  so. 

Vardon  is  a  great  believer  in  playing  his  drive 
with  a  slice.  It  must  not  be  thought  when  I  say 
this  that  he  produces  what  one  immediately  thinks 
of  when  the  word  slice  is  mentioned.  On  certain 
courses  he  puts  a  little  slice  on  the  ball.  It  is  not 
a  considerable  cut  as  is  the  ordinary  slice.  It  is 
just  enough  to  be  noticeable  at  the  end  of  the  ball's 
carry  and  it  gives  him,  so  he  says,  greater  con- 
fidence in  getting  the  ball  up  and  away. 

I  am  not  mentioning  this  with  the  idea  of  en- 
couraging those  who  cannot  slice — and  there  are 
some — to  cultivate  the  art,  nor  with  the  desire  of 
solacing  those  who  have  the  vice.  The  slice  is  a 
well  known  stroke  in  golf  and  therefore  we  must 
give  it  our  consideration.  Also  if  we  see  clearly 
how  it  is  produced,  it  may  assist  some  who  have 
it — and  desire  it  not — to  shed  it. 

164 


THE  NEW  GOLF  165 

The  slice  primarily  is  a  cut  stroke.  It  is  caused 
by  the  club  engaging  the  ball  as  it  crosses  the  in- 
tended line  of  flight  to  the  hole. 

In  driving  for  an  intentional  slice  the  stance 
is  much  more  open  than  for  an  ordinary  drive  and 
the  ball  is  taken  much  more  forward,  about  op- 
posite the  left  instep.  The  right  foot  is  nearly 
at  a  right  angle  to  the  line  to  the  hole  and  the  left 
foot  almost  points  to  the  hole. 

Directly  the  club-head  leaves  the  ball  it  goes 
away  farther  from  the  player  than  the  ball.  It  is 
raised  outwards  so  that  it  goes  up  in  a  plane  that 
will  in  the  return  stroke  carry  the  club-head  out 
beyond  the  line  to  the  hole.  This  is  the  simple 
explanation  of  the  intentional  slice  so  far  as  re- 
gards the  stroke.  Of  course  practically  all  the 
things  that  I  have  explained  in  the  chapter  on 
driving  take  place  in  the  slice.  The  main  differ- 
ence is  in  the  plane  of  travel  of  the  club 's  head  in 
relation  to  the  ball.  This  is  caused  principally  by 
the  alteration  in  stance. 

The  club-head  in  returning  across  the  line  to  the 
hole  engages  the  ball;  and  while  the  ball  is  still, 
as  it  is  called,  in  adhesion,  crosses  that  line,  carry- 
ing the  ball  half  flattened  against  its  face  for  an 
appreciable  distance.  The  ball  does  not  leave  the 
club  until  it  regains  its  normal  shape ;  in  fact,  it  is 
regaining  its  normal  shape  that  takes  if  off  the 


166  THE  NEW  GOLF 

club.  While  this  is  happening,  however,  the  ball 
has  flattened  against  the  face  of  the  club  as  men- 
tioned. The  face  of  the  club  is  inclined  back- 
wardly,  and  so  the  ball  flattens  on  to  it  at  this 
angle  at  its  point  of  extreme  compression  which 
occurs  about  the  middle  of  the  full  extent  of  the 
ball's  travel — or  roll — on  the  face  of  the  club. 

It  may  be  interesting  to  state  how  this  com- 
pression happens.  I  have  never  seen  it  stated  in 
any  book  or  paper,  and  I  do  not  remember  that  I 
have  ever  before  stated  it  myself. 

We  have  all  of  us  at  some  time  seen  the  impres- 
sion of  the  ball  left  on  a  club.  Generally  that  is 
the  clear  cut  brand  of  the  compression  caused  by 
a  straight  hit  and  it  gives  one  a  good  idea  of  the 
extent  to  which  a  golf  ball  flattens  on  to  the  club. 
The  "  picture, "  or  impression,  of  a  sliced  ball  is 
however  quite  different.  The  club  naturally 
makes  contact  with  the  ball  practically  at  a  point, 
but  it  does  not  go  on  driving  down  a  line  that 
taken  from  the  club  through  the  ball  would  be  in 
the  plane  of  the  ball's  flight  to  the  hole  as  in  the 
plain  drive.  The  club  is  crossing  the  line  of  the 
ball's  flight.  Therefore  it  engages  the  ball  grad- 
ually and  as  it  crosses  it  proceeds  to  roll  it  on  the 
face  of  the  club.  The  area  of  contact  is  very  slight 
at  first  but  it  gradually  broadens  out  until  we  get 
the  full  diameter  of  compression  after  which  the 


THE  NEW  GOLF  167 

mark  narrows  off  by  degrees  until  the  ball  leaves 
the  club  with  just  about  the  same  impression  as  it 
came  onto  it. 

The  mark  tells  us  clearly  what  happened.  The 
club  touched  the  ball  very  slightly  at  first  and 
began  to  roll  it.  Soon  the  weight  of  the  blow  was 
felt  and  the  ball  in  the  course  of  its  roll  across 
the  face  of  the  club  became  fully  compressed  and 
then  it  gradually  regained  its  shape  as  it  rolled 
off  the  club. 

The  mark  that  the  ball  leaves  on  a  club  is  an 
irregular  stunted  ellipse.  The  point  that  I  want 
my  readers  to  remember  is,  however,  the  angle 
that  the  ball  takes  in  flattening  on  to  the  face  of 
the  club  during  its  roll  or  movement  across  it.  It 
is  reasonable  to  assume  that  this  angle  is  the  chief 
determining  factor  in  settling  the  axis  of  rotation 
of  the  ball. 

If  we  admit  this  we  see  then  that  the  slice  goes 
away  spinning  from  the  left  to  the  right  and  with 
the  axis  of  rotation  lying  back  towards  the  player 
at  an  angle  which  is  roughly  the  same  as  the  loft 
of  the  driver  or  other  club  with  which  the  stroke 
was  played. 

Sometimes  the  slice  is  played  as  the  club  is  going 
downwards  and  across  the  line.  This  tends  to  tilt 
the  axis  of  spin  so  that  the  top  of  it  inclines  a 
little  toward  the  player,  while  the  angle  at  which 


168  THE  NEW  GOLF 

it  is  leaning  back  is  not  appreciably  altered.  This 
point  arises  when  we  come  to  consider  the  reason 
for  the  slice  being  a  poor  runner. 

A  sliced  ball  swerves  in  its  flight  from  left  to 
right.  The  cause  of  this  swerve  is  very  simple 
and  may  be  explained  in  a  few  words.  On  the  left 
side — if  I  may  use  that  word  when  speaking  of  a 
sphere — the  ball  has  the  sum  of  the  two  motions 
forward  progression  and  forward  revolution,  for 
on  that  side  the  ball  is  spinning  toward  the  hole. 
Thus,  as  Newton  put  it,  the  motions  on  that  side 
"conspire"  and  they  beat  the  contiguous  air  more 
vigorously  than  does  the  other  side  of  the  ball, 
where  the  motion  of  the  spin  is  away  from  the 
hole.  Every  projectile  naturally  seeks  the  line 
of  least  resistance.  It  follows  then  that  the  ball 
edges  over  to  that  side  whereon  there  is  least 
friction,  the  backward- spinning  side.  This  is  a 
short  and  simple  explanation  of  why  the  golf  ball 
swerves  in  its  flight. 

Comparatively  few  players  could  explain  what 
causes  a  slice  and  the  resultant  swerve  which  is  so 
often  disastrous.  Is  it  likely  that  if  one  does  not 
know  how  one  is  offending  that  one  can  take 
effectual  steps  to  stop  the  offense?  It  seems  rea- 
sonable to  think  that  a  clear  idea  of  how  the  slice 
is  produced  must  help  any  one  who  wants  to  do  it, 
or  any  one  who  is  doing  it  and  desires  ardently 


THE  NEW  GOLF  169 

not  to  do  it.  The  golf  stroke  makes  such  an  in- 
exorable demand  for  accuracy  that  it  seems  to  me 
that  if  one  desires  to  excel,  particularly  if  one 
has  taken  to  the  game  late  in  life,  one's  best  chance 
for  success  lies  in  knowing  all  there  is  to  be  known 
about  the  game  outside  of  playing  the  strokes. 
Surely,  if  one  brings  to  one's  aid  this  knowledge, 
which  cannot  possibly,  when  sanely  used,  hamper 
execution  in  any  way,  one  must  have  a  better 
chance  of  success  than  he  who  insists  on  groping 
in  the  dark  in  the  pathetic  idea  that  he  cannot 
take  advantage  of  the  accumulated  work  of  those 
who  have  gone  before  him. 

Golf  really  is  not  a  game  calling  for  a  vast 
amount  of  intellect.  If  it  were  so,  we  should  not 
see  the  men  who  are  supreme  at  it  where  they  are. 
None  knows  that  better  than  they  themselves. 
They  have  got  where  they  are  by  a  lifetime  of 
imitation,  by  learning  through  the  eye — probably 
the  best  way,  too,  if  one  has  time  enough,  and 
lacks  either  the  desire  or  the  power  to  use  some 
gray  matter  with  one's  strokes. 

The  real  demand  of  golf  is  for  extreme  mechan- 
ical accuracy.  There  are  many  reasons  for  this. 
The  striking  face  of  the  golf  club  is  the  smallest 
surface  used  for  such  a  purpose  in  any  field  sport, 
the  golf  ball  is  the  smallest  ball  used  in  any  ball 
game,  and,  with  the  exception  of  polo,  the  ball  is 


170  THE  NEW  GOLF 

farther  removed  from  the  line  of  vision  than  in 
any  ball  game  that  I  can  call  to  mind.  It  follows 
that  the  margin  for  error  is  extremely  small. 

Of  course  against  these  disabilities  we  have  the 
fact  that  the  golfer  is  always  playing  a  stationary 
ball,  but  even  when  this  is  taken  into  consideration, 
it  will  be  seen  that  there  is  not  in  the  golf  stroke 
much  room  for  haphazard  methods  or  guess-work, 
particularly  when  one  is  playing  such  a  stroke  as 
the  slice,  wherein,  on  account  of  the  glancing  blow, 
the  margin  for  error  is  even  less  than  in  the  ordi- 
nary stroke. 

I  am  emphasizing  these  points  here  because  one 
is  frequently  told,  as  we  have  already  seen,  by 
persons  whose  words  ought  to  carry  authority, 
that  the  slice  is  played  by  drawing  the  hands  in 
towards  one  at  the  moment  of  impact.  Nothing 
could  be  further  from  the  truth  and  nothing  could 
be  better  devised  utterly  to  spoil  the  correct  exe- 
cution of  the  stroke.  Such  a  performance  would 
tend  to  arrest  the  club  head  at  the  very  moment 
when  it  must  be  traveling,  unrestrained  in  any 
way  whatever,  back  in  the  arc  which  one  decided 
on  as  its  track  the  moment  one  started  it  on  its 
upward  journey  from  the  ball. 

This  is  the  truth  about  the  production  of  the 
slice.  If  any  one  is  suffering  from  producing  it 
consistently  and  involuntarily  there  are  many  ways 


THE  NEW  GOLF  171 

of  trying  to  cure  him ;  as  many  cures,  I  should  say, 
as  there  are  varieties  of  the  disease. 

The  outstanding  suggestion,  of  course,  is  to 
moderate  one's  stance,  to  get  back  by  degrees  to 
the  normal  open  stance,  or  even,  if  necessary,  be- 
yond it.  Again  one 's  hands  may  be  wrong  and  the 
grip  may  perhaps  be  altered  with  advantage,  but 
each  case  has  almost  to  be  judged  on  its  own 
merits.  I  have,  however,  cured  many  a  case  of 
slicing  without  even  seeing  the  sufferer  handle  a 
club  by  risking  the  guess  that  he  was  not  on  his 
left  foot  firmly  enough  at  the  moment  of  impact, 
and  by  impressing  on  him  most  forcibly  the  im- 
portance of  being  solidly  on  his  left  foot  at  the 
top  of  his  drive,  in  his  case  to  have  an  extra  four- 
teen to  eighteen  pounds  on  it  if  necessary  over  and 
above  the  weight  on  his  right  foot.  This  nearly 
always  means  bringing  them  "  through "  the  ball 
and  out  after  it  a  bit  more  than  they  are  accus- 
tomed to.  It  is  extremely  easy  to  slice  if  one 
anchors  the  weight  instead  of  letting  it  go  down 
the  line  just  as  one  is  hitting  the  ball. 

Another  exercise  that  helps  some  people  is  to 
run  a  chalk  mark  in  the  line  from  the  hole,  to 
place  the  ball  on  it,  and  to  drive  from  it,  taking 
care  that  in  the  swing  back  the  club  never  gets 
any  farther  away  from  one  than  in  the  address. 
If  this  does  not  correct  the  fault,  start  the  swing  by 


172  THE  NEW  GOLF 

coming  in  from  the  line  of  flight  directly  there  is 
the  least  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  arms  to  pull 
the  club-head  in,  which,  if  one  is  playing  correctly, 
is  almost  immediately  the  club  head  leaves  the 
ball.  Theoretically  the  club-head  leaves  the  line 
of  flight  and  comes  in  towards  the  player 's  side 
of  it  the  instant  it  leaves  the  ground,  nor  does  it 
return  to  the  line  until  the  actual  moment  of  im- 
pact ;  for  the  plane  of  the  irregular  ellipse  formed 
by  the  travel  of  the  club-head  only  coincides  for 
a  very  short  distance  with  the  plane  of  the  ball's 
flight.  This  is  another  reason  for  having  a  fairly 
comprehensive  idea  of  what  it  is  we  are  trying 
to  do  when  we  start  driving;  for  unless  we  did 
move  out  bodies  forward,  as  advised  by  Vardon, 
on  to  the  ball,  we  should  actually  have  the  head  of 
the  driver  in  the  line  to  the  hole  but  for  about  an 
inch.  We  must  therefore  see  to  it  that  we  try 
our  utmost  to  cultivate  the  art  of  timing  our  bodies 
on  to  the  ball  but  not  on  to  the  follow-through. 
That  is  a  matter  that  will  attend  to  itself. 

We  have  seen  now  how  the  slice  is  produced, 
and  what  it  is  that  causes  the  ball  to  curve  away 
to  the  right.  The  spin  on  a  golf  ball,  unless  the 
ball  has  been  grievously  miss-hit,  is  nearly  always 
dominated  by  the  pace  of  the  ball.  It  is  when  the 
pace  begins  to  die  away  that  the  spin  shows  its 
mischievous  qualities  if  there  is  enough  of  it  to 


THE  NEW  GOLF  173 

be  mischievous.  Then  it  is  astonishing  to  see  how 
the  ball,  especially  if  the  wind  assists  it,  will 
career  away  to  the  right  and  probably  end  by 
hiding  itself  in  a  most  inconvenient  place  in  the 
rough. 

If  however  the  ball  should  land  on  the  fair  green 
and  not  too  near  the  edge  of  the  course  one  has  a 
fair  chance  of  escaping  trouble,  for  the  slice  does 
not  run  so  freely  as  its  more  esteemed  relation, 
the  pull.  The  reason  for  this  is  not  very  generally 
understood,  but  it  is  simple,  and  may  in  some  ways 
be  helpful,  so  I  give  it  here. 

In  dealing  with  what  took  place  while  the  ball 
and  the  club  were  in  adhesion  I  referred  to  the  fact 
that  sometimes  the  slice  is  played  as  the  club  is 
returning  downwards  and  across  the  line  of  flight, 
and  I  explained  the  resultant  tilt  that  is  given  to 
the  axis  of  spin.  It  will  be  seen  that  in  the  spin 
of  an  ordinary  slice  the  axis  is  almost  vertical,  but 
generally  lying  back  a  little.  When  it  gets  that 
little  extra  tilt  I  spoke  of,  the  axis  of  spin  of  the 
sliced  ball  towards  the  end  of  its  carry  almost 
exactly  coincides  with  the  line  of  its  flight.  This 
is  almost  equivalent  to  having  a  peg  top  come 
down,  let  us  say  at  an  angle  of  thirty-five  degrees 
and  with  the  peg  sticking  out  toward  the  spot  to 
which  it  is  going.  Certainly  the  peg  is  not  visible 
in  the  case  of  the  golf  ball.  It  is  invisible,  but  the 


174  THE  NEW  GOLF 

effect  is  there — to  a  less  extent,  of  course,  but  it 
is  there. 

Every  spinning  thing  tries  very  hard  to  stay  in 
the  plane  of  its  rotation.  This  is  the  secret  of 
the  gyroscope.  The  sliced  ball  is  no  exception  to 
the  rule.  It  strives  as  hard  as  it  can  to  remain 
in  the  plane  of  its  rotation.  As  the  axis  of  rota- 
tion coincides  with  the  line  of  the  ball's  flight  it 
follows  that  the  plane  of  spin  of  the  sliced  ball  is 
squarely  across  the  line  of  its  travel,  therefore 
the  moment  the  ball  lands  that  rotation  fights  to 
the  last  turn  before  it  consents  to  allow  the  sliced 
ball  to  turn  over  in  the  way  that  will  allow  it  to 
roll  sideways  off  the  course.  This  explanation 
may  make  a  little  clearer  to  my  readers  why  it  is 
that  a  properly  regulated  slice  gives  control  of 
the  run  especially  on  heavy  ground. 

There  is  an  exaggerated  form  of  the  slice  that 
may  more  aptly  be  termed  "a  reverse  pull"  that 
produces  a  different  effect  on  landing.  In  this 
stroke  the  ball,  generally  by  accident,  is  struck 
more  as  the  club  is  coming  up.  This  produces  a 
different  effect  on  the  run  of  the  ball,  which  then 
has  more  of  the  nature  of  the  pull  in  its  run. 

The  outstanding  characteristics  of  the  sliced  ball 
are  its  sudden  rise,  high  flight,  curve  to  the  right 
and  its  restricted  run.  The  sudden  rise  of  the 
slice  has  not  been  satisfactorily  explained.  Per- 


THE  NEW  GOLF  175 

sonally  (in  addition  to  the  fact  that  one  frequently 
and  unconsciously  increases  the  natural  loft  of  the 
club)  I  think  it  is  attributable  to  the  fact  that  the 
axis  of  spin  is  oblique,  and  that  almost  the  whole 
of  the  forward  and  bottom  part  of  the  ball  is  re- 
volving so  as  to  get  a  lot  of  friction  instead  of, 
as  in  the  ordinary  case  of  a  spinning  ball,  getting 
it  only  on  one  side.  This  I  think  must  tend  to 
push  the  ball  up  a  good  deal. 

It  would  be  easy  for  me  to  describe  to  you  how 
to  play  dogs-legs  and  elbows,  and  around  clumps 
of  trees,  and  how  to  hold  up  against  the  sides  of 
hills,  all  by  the  help  of  the  slice,  but  I  shall  not 
do  so.  I  have  told  you  enough  to  assist  you  to 
learn  and  understand  the  shot.  If  you  put  it  into 
practise  to  the  extent  of  learning  the  stroke  so 
as  to  be  able  to  produce  it  in  the  rare  cases  where 
it  really  is  the  best  stroke  to  use  you  will  under- 
stand that  I  was  wise  to  leave  all  that  other  stuff 
out. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  PULL 

THE  pull  is  looked  upon  by  golfers  in  an  en- 
tirely different  light  from  that  in  which  they 
regard  its  humble  relative  the  slice.  There  is 
hardly  the  player  traveling  the  links  to-day  who 
does  not  feel  rather  pleased  with  himself  when  he 
gets — generally  more  by  accident  than  design — 
that  long  low  ball  that  scoots  out  toward  the  rough 
on  the  right  of  the  course,  mayhap  even  over  it, 
and  then,  toward  the  end  of  its  carry,  swings  in 
toward  the  middle  of  the  course  and  on  landing 
runs  like  a  frightened  rabbit  down  the  course  to- 
ward the  hole. 

This  may  be  a  somewhat  pleasanter  picture  than 
that  which  comes  into  the  mind  of  the  ordinary 
golfer  when  the  pull  is  mentioned,  but  it  is  not, 
as  any  golfer  knows,  any  exaggeration  of  the  real 
stroke,  nor  of  the  pleasure  in  playing  it,  par- 
ticularly when  it  has  been  done  of  knowledge  and 
skill  and  not  by  chance. 

The  pull  is  most  certainly  a  valuable  and  beau- 
tiful stroke.  Every  player  who  wants  to  rise  to 

176 


THE  NEW  GOLF  177 

the  highest  class  should  understand  it  and  try  to 
get  it.  A  man  may  go  a  long  time  without  really 
requiring  to  play  a  pull.  At  any  time  it  may  be 
the  one  stroke  that  will  save  the  hole — or  the 
match — for  him.  It  is  well  worth  knowing — and 
having. 

Most  golfers  know  the  stance  and  address  for 
the  pull  and  many  of  them  have  a  hazy  idea  about 
a  particular  grip,  while  a  method  of  cocking  up  the 
toe  of  the  club  and  turning  it  inward  is  alleged 
to  produce  the  pull,  but  beyond  this  very  few,  un- 
less they  are  lucky  enough  to  have  it  naturally, 
can  go. 

For  the  benefit  of  those  who  do  not  know,  I  may 
say  that  the  stance  for  the  pull  is  almost  the  re- 
verse of  that  for  the  slice.  One  addresses  the  ball 
very  far  back,  so  far  back  indeed  that  it  is  only 
three  or  four  inches  in  front  of  the  right  heel. 
The  left  foot  instead  of  pointing  towards  the  hole 
now  points  towards  the  line  of  flight  at  almost  a 
right  angle,  within,  say,  five  or  six  inches  of  that 
angle.  It  is  now  advanced,  and  is  nearer  the  line 
of  flight  than  the  right  foot,  which  is  eight  or  nine 
inches  further  from  the  line  of  flight  than  is  the 
left  foot  and  pointing  away  from  the  hole  more 
than  in  the  slice.  The  right  hand  is  more  behind 
the  shaft  of  the  club  and  the  left  hand  has  nat- 
urally moved  round  a  little  with  it,  otherwise  the 


1 78  THE  NEW  GOLF 

grip  is  the  same  as  in  the  ordinary  stroke.  This 
stance  naturally  brings  the  hands  a  little  in  front 
of  the  ball. 

The  swing  back  in  the  pull  is  much  flatter  than 
that  of  the  slice.  Immediately  the  club  leaves  the 
ball  it  begins  to  curve  in  and  away  from  the  line 
to  the  hole.  This  is  the  correct  method  of  starting 
the  stroke,  although  Vardon  says  that  the  club 
should  be  taken  back  as  in  the  ordinary  drive. 
Now  I  have  told  you  the  most  important  part  of  it. 
You  have  got  your  grip  and  stance  correct  and  you 
have  started  your  swing  correctly.  If  you  carry 
on  now  you  can  scarcely  avoid'  playing  the  stroke 
properly. 

You  have  started  your  swing  back  with  the  in- 
stant inward  curve.  That  is  going  to  make  your 
swing  flatter  than  usual,  and  your  stance  and  ad- 
dress will  make  you,  in  the  downward  swing,  played 
with  all  observance  of  the  essentials  of  the  proper 
drive,  pass  your  club  out  and  across  the  line  of 
flight  and  slightly  upwards  during  the  all-impor- 
tant period  of  adhesion. 

When  I  first  explained  this  stroke  in  London  it 
caused  a  furious  controversy.  It  was  claimed  that 
my  explanation  was  wrong  and  that  the  real  cause 
of  the  pull  was  the  turn-over  of  the  wrists  at  the 
moment  of  impact.  Any  attempt  to  do  anything 
of  this  kind  would  simply  lead  to  foundering  the 


THE  NEW  GOLF  179 

ball.  It  is  not,  nor  ever  was,  practical  golf.  You 
will  observe  that  as,  in  speaking  of  the  slice,  I  said 
nothing  of  the  turn  under  of  the  right  wrist  in  the 
follow-through,  so  here  I  have  no  instructions  to 
give  about  turning  over  the  right  wrist.  It  will 
do  it  of  its  own  accord  in  the  follow-through  if  you 
play  the  stroke  correctly. 

It  is  curious  that  it  has  never  been  asserted  of 
the  slice  that  this  turn-under  of  the  right  wrist  is 
done  at  the  moment  of  impact;  yet  of  the  pull  it 
is  most  obstinately  asserted,  in  some  quarters  even 
now,  that  the  turn-over  of  the  right  wrist  takes 
place  during  impact.  The  fact  is,  however,  that  it 
follows  the  impact  with  such  rapidity  that  the  eye 
cannot  distinguish  the  movement. 

In  England  the  controversy  reached  such  a  stage 
that  some  people  got  quite  angry  about  it.  I  of- 
fered to  give  a  public  demonstration  of  the  matter 
if  the  doubters  would  make  the  necessary  arrange- 
ments and  bear  the  expense,  but  this  they  would 
not  do,  so  I  settled  it  another  way. 

About  this  time  I  was  writing  Modern  Golf,  and 
I  was  using  George  Duncan  to  illustrate  the 
strokes.  He  was  then  a  comparatively  unknown 
quantity;  but  in  my  opinion  full  of  the  highest 
promise,  which  he  has  since  all  but  fulfilled. 

Duncan  is  probably  only  inferior  to  Vardon  as 
a  stroke  player,  and  I  have  a  great  respect  for  his 


i8o  THE  NEW  GOLF 

knowledge  of  the  theory  and  practise  of  the  game. 
On  nearly  every  point  he  and  I  were  of  one  mind. 
When  it  came  to  illustrating  the  pull,  however, 
Duncan  told  me  plainly  that  he  did  not  agree  with 
my  explanation  of  it;  that  he  was,  in  fact,  in  the 
enemy's  camp. 

I  said,  "Very  well,  George,  I  must  show  the 
stroke  myself,  but  I  would  sooner  have  you.  Now 
I  shall  tell  you  how  you  can  prove  that  I  am  right 
without  troubling  me  in  the  matter. " 

Then  I  gave  Duncan  instructions  how  to  conduct 
a  test  that  would  give  him  an  infallible  answer. 
Any  one  who  has  any  doubt  about  the  manner  in 
which  the  pull  is  produced  can  try  it  for  himself. 

I  told  him  to  make  a  mark  on  the  grass  with  a 
spot  of  whitewash  that  would  go  through  to  the 
earth,  or  to  make  a  small  white  line  on  the  line  to 
the  hole,  to  place  the  ball  on  this,  and  then  on  the 
far  side  of  the  line  and  starting  opposite  the  front 
of  the  ball  to  put  up  a  row  of  matches  or  invisible 
wires  at  right  angles  to  the  line.  This  done,  he 
was  to  address  the  ball  and  play  a  straight  drive 
down  the  line  to  the  hole. 

He  would  thus  discover  when  he  had  plenty  of 
room  for  a  straight  drive ;  and  he  could  verify  his 
conclusions  by  driving  another  straight  ball  or  two. 
This  done,  he  was  to  count  the  number  of  matches 
or  wires  left  standing,  to  replace  the  ball  in  exactly 


THE  NEW  GOLF  181 

the  same  place,  and  to  play  a  pull.  If  he  would 
come  to  me  and  tell  me  that  under  these  conditions 
he  could  play  a  pull  without  knocking  down  more  of 
his  pegs  than  he  had  carried  away  in  his  straight 
drive  I  told  him  that  I  would  give  him  twenty-five 
dollars  for  his  trouble. 

Duncan  went  into  the  matter  of  the  pull  and 
then  he  came  to  me  and  said  that  I  was  right.  He 
made  no  attempt  to  collect  that  twenty-five  dollars 
and  I  never  asked  him  about  his  experiments.  I 
do  not  know  to  this  day  what  he  did  to  satisfy  him- 
self ;  but  I  used  diagrammatic  photographs  of  him 
in  Modern  Golf  showing  that  the  pull  is  played  as 
I  say  it  is,  and  not  as  the  books  of  the  most  famous 
authors  describe  it — for  that  is  an  impossibility; 
and  we  have  James  Braid's  word  for  it,  if  cor- 
roboration  of  mine  were  wanting,  for  a  fact  that 
seems  fairly  plain,  that  one  must  not  try  to  do  any- 
thing to  the  ball  during  impact. 

There  is  a  very  persistent  idea  with  many  golf- 
ers that  the  correct  way  to  play  the  pull  is  to  cock 
up  the  toe  of  the  club,  turn  it  in  towards  the  hole 
a  little,  and  then  play  the  stroke  in  the  ordinary 
way.  This  means,  of  course,  that  the  player  is 
relying  for  that  spin,  which  is  the  essence  of  the 
pull,  on  the  action  of  the  obliquely  placed  face 
being  driven  down  the  straight  line. 

Some  small  amount  of  spin  no  doubt  would  en- 


182  THE  NEW  GOLF 

sue.  Personally  I  do  not  believe  that  the  players 
who  address  the  ball  in  this  uncanny  manner  get 
the  pull  in  the  manner  they  think  they  do,  and  I  am 
prepared  to  give  my  reasons  for  this. 

If  the  face  of  the  club  is  turned  over  with  the  toe 
forward,  and  the  drive  then  played  in  the  usual 
way,  I  am  sure  that  so  far  from  starting  the  pull 
as  a  pull,  it  would  go  for  what  is  called  a  pull  in 
cricket — that  is,  a  ball  that  is  hit  across  the  wicket, 
or,  in  golf,  across  the  line  of  flight.  I  do  not  deny 
that  a  certain  amount  of  spin  may  be  got  in  this 
manner,  but  I  do  not  think  that  enough  of  it  can 
be  got  to  make  the  stroke  worthy  of  comparison 
with  the  true  pull  as  explained  by  me. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  this  idea  should  have 
such  a  strong  hold.  Some  of  the  most  eminent 
men  have  delivered  lectures  or  written  papers, 
which  rank  in  the  history  of  the  game,  wherein 
their  assumption  has  been  that  the  spin  of  a  golf 
ball  is  obtained  in  a  manner  almost  if  not  exactly 
similar,  from  a  mechanical  point  of  view,  to  that 
advanced  as  being  the  method  of  production  in  the 
pull. 

The  main  difference  between  their  contention 
and  that  of  those  who  think  the  pull  is  got  this  way 
is  that  they  believe  the  beneficial  backspin  in  golf 
is  obtained  by  the  lofted  face  of  the  club  passing 
swiftly  across  the  intended  line  of  flight  of  the  golf 


THE  NEW  GOLF  183 

ball  in  the  same  plane  as  such  intended  line  of 
flight,  as  for  instance  in  the  push  stroke,  whereas 
the  pullers  are  merely,  in  effect,  applying  the  same 
theory,  but  are  endeavoring  to  tilt  the  plane  of  the 
ball's  flight  over,  so  that  the  "loft"  would  exert 
its  influence  mainly  sidewise  and  not,  as  usual, 
vertically.  The  idea  has  arisen  in  each  case,  I  be- 
lieve, from  a  misconception  that  is  fundamental, 
namely  from  an  error  as  to  the  one  and  only  func- 
tion of  "loft"  in  a  golf  club,  which,  as  its  name, 
"loft"  or  "lift"  implies,  is  to  get  the  ball  up  into 
the  air.  The  other  things  have  to  be  done  by  the 
player. 

If  this  idea  were  sound  I  should  have  con- 
structed and  placed  on  the  market  special  clubs 
called  pullers,  slicers  and  pushers  with  which  one 
could  play  the  same  shot  with  three  different  clubs 
and  yet  produce  the  three  widely  different  strokes 
named. 

This  really  is  not  such  a  wild  idea  as  it  may 
seem.  At  one  time  I  really  had  thought  of  it.  If 
this  method  of  cocking  up  the  toe  and  turning  the 
face  over  really  is  a  good  method  of  getting  the 
pull  why  should  one  not  experiment  and  get  a  club 
made  so  that  when  it  is  soled  it  is  set  just  exactly 
right  for  the  stroke.  I  think  this  club  would  sell — 
if  it  would  do  the  work ! 

The  idea  of  making  the  clubs  as  much  alike  as 


i84  THE  NEW  GOLF 

possible  in  weight,  length,  grip  and  every  other 
way  is  good  and  will  no  doubt  be  carried  much 
further  in  the  future  than  it  is  now.  Some  years 
ago,  when  I  had  more  time  to  spare  than  I  have 
now,  I  made  some  experiments  with  a  cleek.  By 
taking  the  same  cleek  and  putting  the  weight 
mainly  at  the  bottom  and  then  nearer  up  to  the 
middle  and  finally  a  little  higher  one  gets  with 
exactly  the  same  stroke  three  entirely  different 
results.  This  is  true  in  many  important  points 
of  all  clubs,  and  probably  nobody  would  venture 
to  deny  the  advisability  of  making  the  club  do  as 
much  as  possible  in  a  game  where  the  call  for  me- 
chanical accuracy  is  so  insistent  as  it  is  in  golf. 

Curiously  enough,  exactly  the  same  delusion 
about  the  right  method  of  obtaining  top-spin  exists 
in  tennis  as  there  is  about  obtaining  the  modified 
top-spin  of  the  pull  in  golf.  Numerous  writers 
advise  the  player  to  wait  until  he  feels  the  ball  on 
the  racket  and  then  to  whip  his  wrist  up,  thus  giv- 
ing a  roll  to  the  ball.  Others  again,  amongst  them 
an  ex-champion  of  the  United  States,  advises  play- 
ers at  the  moment  to  impact  to  have  the  face  of  the 
racket  overhanging  the  ball — that  is,  with  the  top 
side  of  the  frame  nearer  the  net  than  the  bottom. 
It  is  to  me  amazing  that  such  manifest  errors  are 
allowed  to  go  forth  associated  with  names  that 
do  undoubtedly  carry  weight.  What  would  be 


THE  NEW  GOLF  185 

thought  of  me  if  I  suggested  altering  the  loft  of  a 
driver  into  an  overhang!  Well,  tennis  has  not  a 
special  set  of  mechanical  laws  for  itself  and  if  the 
ball  is  below  the  height  of  the  net,  whether  it  is  in 
the  air  as  a  tennis  ball,  or  on  the  ground  as  a  golf 
ball,  there  is  only  one  thing  that  will  lift  it  to  the 
place  to  which  one  desires  it  to  go  and  that  is  loft. 
If  it  is  not  provided  on  the  striking  implement  the 
player,  as  in  tennis,  must  provide  it  or  the  ball 
refuses  to  go  up.  No  overhang,  in  golf  or  tennis, 
can  be  of  service  in  getting  the  ball  up.  There 
may  possibly  be  a  chance  of  taking  a  theoretical 
objection  to  this  statement.  Were  the  ball  just  a 
few  inches  below  the  tape  a  stroke  with  a  vertical 
racket  might,  on  account  of  the  adhesion,  carry  it 
up  so  that  it  would  go  over,  but  even  here  we  should 
have  to  admit  lift,  if  not  loft. 

Both  in  the  drive  with  top-spin  in  tennis  and  in 
the  pull  in  golf  the  turnover  of  the  right  wrist 
has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  production 
of  the  stroke.  That  comes  in  the  follow-through, 
after  the  ball  has  gone  on  its  way,  if  one  has  played 
the  stroke  correctly.  An  enormous  number  of  re- 
turns are  foundered,  put  into  the  net  or  in  many 
cases  on  to  the  court  before  the  net  is  reached, 
because  players  think  that  this  turnover  of  the 
right  wrist  comes  in  at  the  moment  of  impact,  and 
consequently  they  get  it  in  much  too  soon.  This 


186  THE  NEW  GOLF 

is  a  fine  illustration  of  the  fact  that  one  must  not 
attempt  to  do  anything  whatever  to  the  ball  during 
impact  either  in  golf  or  tennis.  What  happens 
then — I  cannot  say  it  too  often — is  merely  an  in- 
cident of  the  stroke  itself. 

It  is  worthy  of  mention  that  in  Advanced  Golf 
James  Braid  shows  by  photographs  the  actual 
moment  of  impact  in  the  pull.  There  is  no  sign 
whatever  of  any  turn  over  of  the  face  of  the  club 
in  this  picture,  nor  does  Braid  in  Advanced  Golf 
make  this  statement  about  the  turn-over,  although 
he  did  in  an  earlier  work.  I  should  think  that 
we  ought  to  be  able  to  take  this  as  Braid's  con- 
sidered opinion;  for  the  photograph  is  obviously 
posed,  and  Braid  would  have  been  sure  to  show 
such  an  important  matter  as  this  turn-over  dis- 
tinctly and  to  comment  on  it.  On  the  contrary, 
we  find  him  showing  that  the  club  returns  to  the 
ball  naturally  as  in  the  ordinary  address  for  the 
pull;  from  which  it  is  evident  that  Braid  now  is 
satisfied  that  he  gets  his  fine  low  ball  by  swinging 
out  across  the  line  of  flight — as  indeed  nobody  who 
has  stood  behind  him  and  seen  him  play  it  could 
doubt. 

There  has  at  various  times  been  much  argument 
as  to  the  difference  in  the  flight  and  run  of  the 
pull  and  the  slice.  We  shall  have  occasion  proba- 
bly to  consider  this  matter  again  in  dealing  with  the 


THE  NEW  GOLF  187 

flight  of  the  ball.  It  seems  proper  however  here 
to  explain  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  the  flight 
and  run  of  the  pull. 

As  we  have  seen  the  pull  is  produced  by  an  up- 
ward, outward,  glancing  blow.  The  ball  goes 
away  spinning  on  an  axis  which  lies  over  with  its 
top  end  nearer  to  the  player  than  the  bottom.  I 
must  make  this  as  clear  as  I  possibly  can  so  I  must 
risk  being  precise  here.  Let  us  suppose  that  you 
have  just  succeeded  in  playing  a  perfect  pull. 
Now  suppose  that  I  am  capable  of  arresting  the 
flight  of  that  ball,  without  interrupting  its  spin 
and  that  I  get  you  again  to  take  up  your  stance 
and  address  and  replace  the  ball  as  it  was  before 
you  hit  it.  You  know  as  well  as  I  do  that  it  would 
spin  for  a  very  little  while  and  then  subside,  but 
before  it  does  this  I  want  you  to  allow  me  to 
exercise  my  powers  of  imagination  or  necromancy 
by  changing  the  spinning  ball  into  a  boy's  peg- 
top  still  spinning. 

I  shall  now  show  you  the  angle  at  which  that 
top  is  spinning  by  placing  it  where  the  ball  was. 
This  is  the  instant  you  have  to  consider.  You  have 
no  concern  beyond  that,  for  things  would  change 
in  a  way  that  does  not  come  into  golf.  You  have 
however,  seen  the  top  placed  down  in  front  of  your 
club  and  at  that  instant  what  is  happening  is  this. 
The  top  is  spinning  in  such  a  way  that  the  peg 


i88  THE  NEW  GOLF 

is  further  from  you  than  the  head.  The  head  is 
lying  inwards  towards  you  in  such  a  way  that  if 
the  peg  ran  right  through  it  it  would  cross  the 
place  of  impact  on  the  face  of  the  club  at  an  angle 
of,  roughly  say,  fifty  degrees. 

You  will  thus  see,  when  you  reconvert  the  top 
into  a  golf  ball,  and  send  it  careering  on  its  way 
that  the  right  side  is  the  for  ward- spinning  side 
and  that  the  ball  is  spinning  about  an  axis,  which 
gives  it  a  spin  that  is  not  really  top  spin,  but  is 
yet  very  near  to  it ;  in  fact,  a  spin  which  may  justly 
be  called  modified  top  spin.  As  we  saw  in  the 
case  of  the  slice  the  forward-spinning  side  gets 
most  of  the  friction.  In  the  pull  this  is  the  right 
side,  therefore  the  ball  is  gradually  edged  over 
towards  the  left  side.  The  angle  of  the  axis  of 
rotation  in  the  pull  is  probably  greater  than  I  have 
stated.  Were  this  not  so  there  seems  to  be  a  great 
probability  that  this  fine  ball  would  yield  to  the 
seductive  influence  of  gravitation  more  speedily 
than  it  does. 

Top  spin  has  no  place  in  golf.  It  is  quite  use- 
less in  this  game.  The  nearest  we  get  to  it  is  in 
the  pull.  Ordinary  top  spin,  as  many  of  us  know 
to  our  cost,  simply  means  a  vicious  duck  and  some 
run,  but  it  is  useless.  In  the  modified  top  spin 
of  the  pull  we  see  however  considerable  benefit. 
When  the  ball  lands  the  spin  is  still  working;  and 


THE  NEW  GOLF  189 

on  account  of  the  angle  of  the  axis  of  spin,  which 
lies  right  across  the  plane  of  flight,  the  ball  runs 
well  until  the  power  of  both  the  stroke  and  the 
spin,  which  in  this  stroke  cooperate,  is  exhausted. 

The  simplest  explanation  that  I  can  give  of  the 
plane  of  spin  of  the  pulled  ball  on  landing  and  of  its 
run  is  furnished  by  one  of  the  old  chameleon  tops 
or  any  similar  disc  top.  Every  one  has  seen  such 
a  top  at  the  end  of  its  spin  wabbling  about  until 
the  outer  rim  touches  whatever  it  is  spinning  on. 
Then  it  grips  the  floor  or  table  and  runs  away 
across  it.  That  is  why  the  pulled  ball  in  golf  runs 
so  well,  and  if  one  takes  the  peg  of  any  of  these 
tops  as  representing  the  axis  of  spin  of  the  pulled 
ball  in  the  air  one  will  have  a  very  good  idea  of 
what  is  going  on  during  the  carry. 

I  always  call  the  spin  of  the  pull  "  modified  top 
spin. ' '  I  cannot  get  anything  to  express  it  better. 
It  always  seems  to  me  that  this  is  a  ball  with  an 
admixture  of  top  spin  that  does  its  ducking  side- 
wise,  but  at  the  same  time  I  am  more  than  half  in- 
clined to  think  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  flight 
there  is  a  good  deal  more  cross  spin  than  top  spin. 
Probably,  however,  the  axis  of  spin  is  altered 
slightly  during  the  flight  and  almost  certainly  on 
impact  the  ball  is  thrown  more  into  overspin  than 
it  was  originally,  for  the  lower  end  of  the  spin- 
ning axis  is  the  first  point  to  be  arrested.  This 


igo  THE  NEW  GOLF 

naturally  throws  the  top  end  forward  and  more 
across  the  course,  thus  correcting  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent the  natural  tendency  of  the  ball  to  run  off 
the  fairway. 


CHAPTEB  XIII 

THE   EYES 

THERE  is  some  advice  that  is  given  to  every 
golfer  or  player  about  his  eyes  and  the  ball. 
Every  book  loudly  insists  on  it,  and  if  anything 
goes  wrong  with  any  part  of  the  swing  any  one 
who  can  think  of  nothing  else  to  say  says  it.  I 
should  like  to  see  if  it  is  possible  to  deal  intelli- 
gently with  the  function  of  the  eyes,  and  also  to 
avoid  using  this  parrot-cry  of  the  links. 

One  of  the  main  essentials  when  playing  a  stroke 
is  to  keep  one's  head  still.  This  is  not  so  clearly 
and  forcibly  insisted  on  as  it  should  be.  One  is 
reminded  frequently  and  forcibly  of  the  impor- 
tance of  sustained  visual  operations  in  relation 
to  the  ball,  but  those  who  insist  on  this  quite  lose 
sight  of  the  fact  that  staring  at  the  ball  is  not 
really  very  useful  if  one  is  moving  one's  head 
about,  up  or  down,  or  backwards  or  forwards. 

It  will  be  seen  that  one  could  concentrate  on  the 
unoffending  little  ball  a  glare  of  fixed  intensity 
that  would  cause  any  ordinary  man  to  wilt,  and 
could  sustain  that  gaze  for  " quite  some  time," 

191 


192  THE  NEW  GOLF 

but  it  would  be  fruitless,  if  while  this  was  going 
on  (and  contemporaneously  the  gazer  was  driv- 
ing) he  was  elevating  and  depressing  the  part  of 
his  anatomy  wherein  are  fixed  his  hypnotic  in- 
struments. 

Obviously  then  the  thing  that  really  matters  so 
far  as  regards  the  eyes  is  that  the  head  must, 
during  the  stroke,  be  kept  in  the  same  position  as 
it  was  in  at  the  address  and  must  not  be  moved 
until  the  stroke  has  been  played. 

This  is  the  soundest  of  sound  theory,  and  despite 
the  fact  that  our  weight  has  to  be  moving  on  to  the 
ball  just  before  the  moment  of  impact  it  is  probably 
so  near  actual  practice  that  we  may  accept  it  as 
what  we  all  do  when  we  are  doing  the  right  thing. 

It  really  is  not  necessary  that  the  eyes  should 
be  directed  towards  the  ball  at  the  moment  of  im- 
pact for  they  have  fulfilled  their  function  long 
before  the  clubhead  reaches  the  ball.  The  arc  in 
which  the  clubhead  is  to  travel  is  irretrievably 
settled  before  the  club  has  got  within  two  feet  of 
the  ball  and  the  eyes  are  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses out  of  business.  This  is  where  the  trouble 
comes  in.  We  all  know  the  little  saying  about 
somebody  finding  mischief  for  idle  hands.  Well, 
it's  just  the  same  with  idle  eyes.  Having  nothing 
else  to  do  in  the  stroke  they  naturally  want  to  look 
at  the  result  of  their  work.  That  would  not  be 


THE  NEW  GOLF  193 

so  prejudicial  to  the  stroke  if  they  were  located 
anywhere  else  than  in  the  head  or  if  they  would 
move  independently  of  the  head.  Unfortunately 
they  do  not.  When  they  cease  to  regard  the  ball 
and  look  up  the  head  goes  up  too — so  does  the 
stroke.  Therefore  we  excuse  the  parrot-cry  for 
it  conduces  to  good  golf. 

We  must  remember  that  once  we  have  settled 
to  our  stance  and  address  and  the  club  has  left  the 
ball  the  head  should  be  as  immovable  as  if  it  were 
held  in  a  vise.  The  feet  also  are  fixed  in  their 
position,  any  moving  they  do  being  practically 
just  up  and  down  at  the  heel,  so  that  all  the  move- 
ment of  the  golf  stroke  takes  place,  until  the  fol- 
low-through begins,  between  three  fixed  points,  the 
head  and  two  feet. 

Harry  Vardon  declares  that  he  can  address  the 
ball  and  then  drive  it  nearly  as  well  with  his  eyes 
shut  as  when  he  is  looking  at  it.  I  have  many 
times  seen  a  young  American  professional  address 
the  ball,  shut  his  eyes  and  drive  truly  and  well 
with  his  face  turned  up  to  the  sky.  It  was  really 
quite  amusing  and  instructive  to  watch  him.  If 
scientific  experiments  were  conducted  we  should 
be  surprised  to  find  how  soon  in  the  downward 
stroke  the  eye  ceases  to  be  required. 

It  would,  however,  be  unwise  to  insist  too  much 
on  this ;  but  it  is  just  as  unwise  to  go  to  the  other 


194  THE  NEW  GOLF 

extreme,  as  do  so  many  famous  players,  and  per- 
sist that  it  is  not  only  necessary  but  advisable 
to  continue  gazing  at  the  place  where  the  ball  was 
when  it  has  gone.  This  is  really  bad  golf  and 
cannot  be  defended  on  any  ground  except  that 
"The  greater  includes  the  less"  and  that  if  we 
teach  them  this  we  may  induce  them  to  keep  their 
heads  still  until  they  have  struck  the  ball ;  a  thing 
which,  in  itself,  though  surrounded  with  much  clat- 
ter and  untruth,  is  good. 

I  have  pointed  out  in  various  places  that  it  is 
quite  wrong  to  continue  turf-gazing  after  the  ball 
has  gone.  There  is  nothing  to  be  gained  by  doing 
this,  and  much  to  be  lost.  If  one  continues  to  look 
fixedly  at  the  place  where  the  ball  was  one  must 
miss  much  of  the  pleasure  of  one 's  noblest  efforts. 
There  is  of  course  another  aspect.  One  may  be 
saved  some  pain,  but  let  us  not  dwell  on  this. 

The  quite  serious  side  of  this  long-continued 
regard  is  however  that  in  sustaining  it  one  is  al- 
most sure  to  keep  the  head  still.  This  means  that 
one's  follow-through  is  interfered  with,  for  a  rigid 
neck  and  head  must  interfere  with  the  shoulders. 

I  am  glad  to  have  Vardon's  support  in  this  im- 
portant point.  At  page  174  of  The  Complete 
Golfer  he  says:  "But  I  do  not  approve  of  keep- 
ing the  eye  fixed  upon  the  place  where  the  ball 
lay,  so  that  the  grass  is  seen  after  the  ball  has 


THE  NEW  GOLF  195 

departed."  He  says  that  you  must  fixedly  regard 
the  ball — I  refuse  to  quote  his  exact  words  as  they 
would  defeat  my  expressed  endeavor  when  I 
started  this  chapter — "  until  you  have  hit  it,  but 
no  longer.  You  cannot  follow  through  properly 
with  a  long  shot  if  your  eyes  remain  fastened  on 
the  ground.  Hit  the  ball,  and  then  let  your  eye 
pick  it  up  in  its  flight  as  quickly  as  possible.  Of 
course  this  needs  skilful  timing  and  management 
but  precision  will  soon  become  habitual." 

This  is  undoubtedly  sound  practical  golf.  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  many  American  players  dis- 
regard it  and  that  their  long  game  suffers  for  it. 
Stopping  the  head  must  inevitably  tend  to  shorten 
one 's  stroke  and,  moreover,  it  will  probably  affect 
adversely  one 's  direction.  I  am  not  sure  that  this 
is  the  outstanding  fault  in  American  driving  but 
I  have  seen  a  very  great  deal  of  it,  perhaps  not 
enough  on  which  to  condemn  the  follow-through 
generally,  but  still  quite  enough  to  justify  my  call- 
ing attention  to  the  point. 

Some  people  may  doubt  what  I  say  about  the 
eyes  finishing  their  function  so  early  in  the  golf 
stroke.  The  duration  of  impact  in  the  drive  has 
been  measured  by  an  eminent  scientist  who  com- 
putes it  at  one  ten-thousandth  of  a  second.  We 
can  readily  understand  that  the  golf  club  is  travel- 
ing at  an  extremely  rapid  rate.  Can  any  one 


ig6  THE  NEW  GOLF 

imagine  that  it  would  be  possible,  at  say  eighteen 
inches  from  the  ball,  to  readjust  successfully  the 
line  of  travel  of  the  club-head,  to  alter  the  arc  in 
which  it  had  been  traveling  and  to  start  it  going 
in  another  without  absolutely  ruining  the  stroke! 
I  should  indeed  require  some  imagination  to  be- 
lieve in  this  reconstruction.  If  this  cannot  be  done 
it  seems  to  me  to  be  undoubted  that  the  eyes  really 
do  fulfil  their  function  extremely  early  in  the  golf 
swing,  in  fact  much  earlier  than  I  have  indicated. 

Consideration  of  this  point  naturally  causes 
one  to  come  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  in  the 
drive  of  a  vast  number  of  golfers  a  period  before 
impact  during  which  they  do  not  see  the  club.  I 
have  no  doubt  that  in  Vardon's  drive  there  is  a 
period  equal  to  five  or  six  inches,  just  before  im- 
pact, during  which  he  never  sees  the  ball.  I  have 
no  doubt  whatever  of  this.  This  golfer's  " blind 
spot"  exists  even  with  the  most  accurate  players. 
It  is  found  in  nearly  all  sport.  It  is  in  tennis  very 
marked.  The  cricketer  knows  it  to  his  cost.  In 
tennis  it  is  astonishing  how  few  balls  one  sees, 
not  on  to  one's  racket,  but  to  within  three  or  four 
inches  of  it.  Of  course  we  all  know  the  old  slogan ; 
and  we  also  know  how  it  is  honored. 

This  blind  spot  exists  also  in  la-crosse,  rackets, 
polo,  base-ball,  hockey,  and  even  in  billiards ;  but 
it  is  almost  certain  that  it  becomes  less  the  farther 


Brown  Bros.,  N.  Y. 

JEROME  D.  TRAVERS 


Top  of  Swing  in  the  Drive 

This  picture  shows  too  much  weight  on  the  right  leg,  bad 

pivoting  on  the  left  toe,  the  left  arm  too  straight 

and  the  right   elbow   too  high 


THE  NEW  GOLF  197 

away  from  the  eye  the  ball  is  played.  It  is  prob- 
ably least  in  polo;  and  after  that  there  is  less  of 
it  in  the  golf  drive  than  in  any  other  game.  This 
is  very  fortunate  for  the  golfer,  for  he  already  has 
enough  with  which  to  contend. 


CHAPTEE  XIV 

THE  SHOKT  SWING 

"WHY  is  it  that  they  like  to  swing  so  much  and 
waste  so  much  power,  unmindful  of  the  fact  that 
the  shorter  the  swing  the  greater  the  accuracy?" 

This  is  a  question  that  is  well  worth  while  pon- 
dering. He  who  asks  it  is  Harry  Vardon.  Cer- 
tainly he  is  speaking  about  the  cleek  and  the  driv- 
ing mashie,  but  the  question  may  just  as  perti- 
nently be  asked  about  the  wooden  clubs. 

I  have  already  set  out  the  principles  and  practise 
of  the  drive  as  played  in  what  is  considered  the 
most  perfect  form  by  men  who  have  spent  their 
lives  on  the  links,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  golf  drive  when  well  played  in  the  manner 
described  is  a  very  satisfying  hit,  but  to  play  a 
good  game  round  about  the  eighties  and  occasion- 
ally quite  a  little  lower  it  is  not  necessary  to  do  it 
that  way. 

I  myself  always  had  a  very  free  swing,  partially 
due  in  all  probability  to  the  defective  teaching  of 
the  old  days,  which  encouraged  the  bad  habit  of 

198 


THE  NEW  GOLF  199 

relaxing  the  grip  with  the  right  at  the  top  of  the 
stroke.  The  teaching  then  was:  grip  for  all  you 
are  worth  with  the  left  and  play  about  with  your 
right — or  "words  to  that  effect, "  as  the  constable 
always  says  when  he  is  giving  evidence.  At  the 
top  of  my  swing  I  could  see  the  toe  of  my  club 
out  of  the  corner  of  my  left  eye,  without  trying, 
and  at  the  finish  it  was  knocking  about  my  right 
knee.  When  you  get  them  well  with  a  swing  like 
that  they  go;  but  I  protest  that  there  is  about 
twice  the  necessary  energy  and  half  the  requisite 
accuracy  in  such  swings. 

In  no  other  game  that  is  known  do  men  use 
such  a  length  of  stroke  as  in  the  golf  swing.  If  we 
regard  the  striker  as  a  vertical  pillar  coming  out 
of  a  horizontal  plane  we  shall  find  that  in  almost 
every  field  sport  the  blow  is  struck  from  about  an 
angle  of  forty-five  degrees  above  the  shoulder,  that 
is  to  say  the  arm  and  the  striking  implement  are 
raised  to  an  angle  of  about  forty-five  degrees  with 
the  vertical.  In  the  golf  stroke  the  club  is  carried 
back  at  least  to  the  horizontal  and  often  below  it, 
making  in  some  cases  a  half  circle  over  and  above 
the  stroke  usually  required  in  athletic  games. 

I  know  the  answer  that  golf  is  a  law  unto  itself 
— which  it  is  not — and  I  am  not  going  to  argue 
the  matter  here.  I  am  merely  going  to  set  out,  for 
the  benefit  of  those  who  cannot  do  the  full  swing, 


200  THE  NEW  GOLF 

a  few  things  that  I  know  about  the  short  swing 
and  some  things  that  I  have  seen  done  with  it. 

Firstly,  be  it  known  that  a  man  can  get  all  the 
length  necessary  for  a  very  good  game  with  what 
is  generally  called  a  three-quarter  swing,  and 
without  lifting  his  heels  from  the  ground.  This 
three-quarter  swing  goes  up  about  as  far  as  a 
tennis  racket  does  in  an  ordinary  stroke.  The 
arms  go  little  if  any  beyond  the  angle  of  forty-five 
degrees  I  have  already  referred  to. 

The  stroke  is  in  all  ways  played  as  nearly  in 
conformity  with  the  rules  for  driving  as  may 
be.  It  is  a  very  upright  stroke.  It  ceases  when 
it  begins  to  be  inconvenient  by  pulling  at  the  left 
heel.  The  left  heel  does  not,  as  in  the  proper  golf 
stroke,  rise  at  all,  or  if  at  all,  very  little.  As  the 
heels  do  not  move  the  weight  remains  at  the  top 
of  the  swing  equally  distributed. 

The  stroke  is,  if  anything,  more  of  a  hit  than 
the  ordinary  drive.  Being  so  short  and  upright, 
and  the  player  using  very  little  foot  work,  there  is 
a  great  tendency  to  hit  downwards.  This  gives 
the  greatest  of  all  drives  the  wind-cheater,  the 
drive  with  back- spin. 

This  stroke  is  not  an  obsolete  stroke.  It  is  a 
stroke  of  which  no  man  need  be  ashamed.  It  is 
specially  suitable  for  old  men  and  stout  people; 
and  when  playing  it  they  need  not  pity  themselves 


THE  NEW  GOLF  201 

for  their  lack  of  form.  Bather  let  them  congratu- 
late themselves  on  being  pioneers,  for  ere  long 
many  thousands  will  be  following  their  example. 
This  is  a  method  of  execution  that  one  would  want 
much  courage  to  recommend  in  preference  to  the 
orthodox,  but  there  cannot  be  any  doubt  whatever 
that  many  a  man  who  takes  to  the  game  late  in 
life,  who  would  otherwise  never  be  any  good,  may 
by  this  means  become  a  very  proficient  player. 

There  is  one  man  in  New  York  to-day  who 
blesses  the  short  swing.  He  is  well  along  toward 
middle  life  and  a  few  months  ago  he  was  dubbing 
around  in  a  hundred  or  thereabout.  One  of  my  dis- 
ciples whose  girth  absolutely  prohibits  him  from 
playing  anything  but  a  short  swing  coaxed  him  into 
giving  up  his  erratic  stroke  and  using  the  short 
swing.  He  is  a  long  limber  chap  who  ought  to  be 
able  to  play  the  usual  game  well  enough,  but  I  sup- 
pose it  was  starting  late  that  bothered  him.  Well, 
he  took  to  the  short  swing.  It  acted  like  magic. 
Within  a  few  weeks  he  was  down  to  eighty  and  how 
far  he  goes  below  that,  and  what  he  occasionally 
does  now  I  am  not  going  to  tell  you.  It  sounds  too 
good  and  it  might  cause  disappointment.  The 
change  may  not  suit  every  one  so  well ;  but  it  cer- 
tainly worked  wonders  in  his  case.  Any  golfer, 
who  is  really  in  trouble,  and  wants  to  abandon  the 
orthodox  swing  for  the  short  swing,  may  know  at 


202  THE  NEW  GOLF 

first-hand  how  great  a  change  was  made  in  this 
case. 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  because  one  takes 
to  the  short  swing  one  needs  to  abandon  all  foot 
work,  because  this  is  not  so.  In  speaking  of  the 
flat-footed  method  I  have  in  mind  those  elderly  or 
stout  people  for  whom  much  foot  and  ankle  work 
is  inadvisable. 

Many  years  ago,  before  I  ever  thought  of  writ- 
ing a  book  on  golf  or  anything  else,  I  had  a  use- 
ful lesson  on  the  value  of  the  short  swing.  The 
champion  of  our  tennis  club  was  one  of  those  men 
who  have  a  particular  faculty  for  games.  He  was 
not  robust  but  he  had  a  splendid  eye  and  a  wonder- 
ful sense  of  touch.  He  was  also  a  fine  billiard 
player. 

About  this  time  golf  was  introduced  into  our 
town.  He  stood  the  talk  about  it  for  a  year  or 
two,  then  said  that  he  must  get  after  them  in  self- 
defense.  He  joined  the  golf  club.  They  chortled 
in  their  glee  at  his  swing.  He  simply  played  his 
tennis  stroke  at  the  ball.  His  club  was  practically 
never  off  the  line.  They  said  he  was  all  wrong. 
He  was  in  the  habit  of  thinking  for  himself.  He 
directed  their  attention  to  the  fact  that  with  much 
less  effort  and  fuss  he  was  getting  further  than 
their  strong  men — and  much  straighter.  He 
gently  explained  to  them  that  his  theory  of  the 


THE  NEW  GOLF  203 

golf  drive  was  that  it  was  an  exaggerated  put  and 
that  he  intended  to  get  his  results  with  the  least 
possible  exaggeration  and  exertion.  They  laughed 
much,  but  he  went  on  his  way  unperturbed.  One 
by  one  he  took  their  scalps,  and  soon  he  was  the 
local  champion.  This,  bear  in  mind,  was  not  the 
case  of  some  poor  old  man.  It  was  that  of  a  man 
who  at  the  time  was  good  enough,  and  young 
enough,  to  win  the  tennis  championship  of  New 
Zealand,  one  of  the  finest  players  who  ever  handled 
a  racket.  Certainly  his  style  was  not  so  pretty  as 
some  of  the  others,  but  it  got  the  results — and  that 
is  what  most  golfers  want. 

1 '  Short  swingers ' '  are  very  often i  l  put  tappers. ' ' 
I  do  not  know  if  it  is  a  matter  of  stroke  affinity. 
There  is  such  a  thing.  What  one's  service  is  in 
tennis  that  almost  invariably  is  his  smash.  That 
is  to  a  certain  extent  natural,  for  one 's  first  stroke 
is  the  service  ajid  the  service  and  the  smash  are 
virtually  the  same  strokes. 

My  reason  for  mentioning  this  is  that  very  often 
the  elderly  golfer  can  improve  his  game  very  much 
by  swinging  less  in  his  drive  and  more  in  his  put. 
This  reversal  of  things  has  rescued  many  a  man 
from  the  abyss  of  golf  despair. 


CHAPTEE  XV 

THE  POWEB  OF  THE  LEFT 

THE  hoariest  old  tradition  that  ever  fastened  on 
to  golf  was  the  power  of  the  left.  It  was  more 
than  a  tradition.  It  was  a  fetich.  Authors  and 
journalists  worshiped  at  its  shrine.  Golfers  and 
would-be  golfers  yielded  it  the  most  absolute  obe- 
dience, at  least  in  word  and  thought,  although  so 
many  of  these  performed  so  exceedingly  well  with 
their  clubs  that  there  is  grave  doubt  if  they  put 
their  religion  into  practical  use,  even  as  it  is  to- 
day with  many  other  religions. 

I  have  already  referred  in  passing  to  this  most 
persistently  fostered  and  very  injurious  idea.  It 
is  not  indeed  remarkable  that  this  very  great  mis- 
take has  been  handed  down  and  kept  going  through 
the  years.  Practically  every  great  golfer  has 
succumbed  to  the  fairy  tale.  Now,  in  this  matter 
I  want  to  tell  you  quite  plainly  that  there  are  no 
half  measures  with  me.  This  is  a  straight  clean- 
cut  issue.  When  I  have  said  what  I  have  to  say 
on  this  matter  you  are  for  me  or  against  me  on  a 
matter  that  is  another  of  golf's  fundamentals,  that 

204 


THE  NEW  GOLF  205 

is  of  importance  equal  to,  if  not  greater  than,  the 
question  of  the  distribution  of  weight  at  the  top 
of  the  swing.  I  shall  present  to  you  a  mass  of 
authority  in  favor  of  this  superstition.  I  shall 
tell  you  what  I  think  about  the  subject  and,  so  far 
as  you  personally  are  concerned,  I  must  leave  the 
verdict  in  your  hands  although  truth  to  tell  I  have 
small  doubt  as  to  what  it  will  be. 

We  must  in  the  first  place  see  what  the  great 
golfers  have  to  say  about  it. 

At  page  61  of  The  Complete  Golfer  Harry  Var- 
don  says:  "The  grip  with  the  first  finger  and 
thumb  of  my  right  hand  is  exceedingly  firm,  and 
the  pressure  of  the  little  finger  on  the  knuckle  of 
the  left  hand  is  very  decided.  In  the  same  way 
it  is  the  thumb  and  first  finger  of  the  left  hand 
that  have  most  of  the  gripping  work  to  do.  Again, 
the  palm  of  the  right  hand  presses  hard  against 
the  thumb  of  the  left.  In  the  upward  swing  this 
pressure  is  gradually  decreased,  until  when  the 
club  reaches  the  turning  point  there  is  no  longer 
any  such  pressure ;  indeed,  at  this  point  the  palm 
and  the  thumb  are  barely  in  contact." 

Let  me  say  before  I  forget  it  that  I  earnestly 
advise  every  one  to  forget  the  tight  and  loose  finger 
"dope."  This  is  golf  we  are  dealing  with,  not 
music,  and  the  shaft  of  a  golf  club  does  not  respond 
to  this  treatment  as  do  the  strings  of  a  violin  or 


206  THE  NEW  GOLF 

a  banjo.  There  is  quite  enough  to  think  of  dur- 
ing the  golf  swing  without  trying  to  hand  out  piece 
work  to  special  fingers.  If  I  wanted  to  make  you 
think  that  I  know  much  more  than  I  do  about 
golf  I  should  start  analyzing  the  finger  hold  and 
apportioning  the  special  duty  to  each  joint.  Such 
stuff  is  mere  futility.  At  the  top  of  the  swing  grip 
as  fast  as  sin  sticks  to  normal  man  and  never  let 
up,  never  think  of  anything  else  but  hitting  the 
ball  until  it  is  sailing  away. 

I  know  one  professional  whose  great  pride  it 
is  that  he  lets  his  forefinger  wave  about  while  he 
is  playing  his  stroke.  He  has  his  reasons  for  it. 
I  forget  them,  but  probably  he  uses  it  to  point  out 
where  the  ball  ought  to  go — but  does  not. 

If  Vardon  really  did  these  funny  stunts,  what 
he  has  done  with  them  would  have  to  command 
one's  respectful  attention;  but  when  one  knows 
that  this  great  player  will  not  say  this  foolishness 
to  one,  has  one  to  swallow  it  because  an  enterpris- 
ing publisher  hired  a  wordy  journalist  to  make  a 
book  of  a  certain  size  to  take  its  place  in  a  cer- 
tain series.  I  think  not ;  nay,  so  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned, I  know  that  I  shall  not,  as  they  say  in 
America,  " stand  for  it."  The  comfort  and  con- 
venience of  the  great  body  of  golfers  are  of  much 
greater  importance  than  a  question  of  publisher's 
royalties,  and  I  am  convinced  that  Vardon  him- 


THE  NEW  GOLF  207 

self  would  wish  to  stop  this  out-of-date  doctrine 
from  affecting  the  game  prejudicially. 

Vardon  continues:  "The  release  is  a  natural 
one,  and  will,  or  should,  come  naturally  to  the 
player  for  the  purpose  of  allowing  the  head  of  the 
club  to  swing  well  and  freely  back.  But  the  grip 
of  the  thumb  and  first  finger  of  the  right  hand, 
as  well  as  that  of  the  little  finger  upon  the  knuckle 
of  the  first  finger  of  the  left  hand,  is  still  as  firm 
as  at  the  beginning. ' ' 

From  this  you  will  observe  that  you  are  still 
gripping  firmly  at  each  side  of  your  hand,  that  is 
to  say  with  the  little  finger  and  the  forefinger  and 
easing  up  or  playing  about  with  the  second  and 
third  fingers.  Try  it,  brother  golfer,  put  your 
mind  into  it  during  your  stroke,  then  try  to  get 
it  and  use  it  subconsciously,  or  do  the  right  thing 
— and  forget  it. 

Vardon  does  not  anywhere  expressly  say,  so  far 
as  I  know,  that  the  left  hand  and  arm  are  the 
dominant  factors  in  the  golf  stroke,  but  right 
throughout  his  work  he  infers  that  they  are. 

At  page  126  of  The  Complete  Golfer  he  says, 
speaking  of  the  approach  shot  with  the  mashie: 
'  '  This  is  one  of  the  few  shots  in  golf  in  which  the 
right  hand  is  called  upon  to  do  most  of  the  work, 
and  that  it  may  be  encouraged  to  do  so  the  hold 
with  the  left  hand  should  be  slightly  relaxed;" 


208  THE  NEW  GOLF 

and  at  page  147,  in  treating  of  putting,  he  says: 
"But  in  this  part  of  the  game  it  is  quite  clear  that 
the  right  hand  has  more  work  to  do  than  the 
left." 

The  curious  thing  is  that,  notwithstanding  these 
statements,  there  is  not  in  The  Complete  Golfer, 
nor  so  far  as  I  know  in  any  other  well-known  work 
on  golf,  a  specific  description  of  any  stroke 
wherein  the  work  is  done  mainly  by  the  left  hand 
and  arm. 

There  cannot  be  any  doubt,  although  he  does  not 
say  so  in  so  many  words,  that  Vardon  wishes  to 
convey  the  idea  that  the  influence  of  the  left  hand 
and  arm  is  predominant  in  the  majority  of  golf 
strokes. 

We  must  now  turn  to  James  Braid  for  light  on 
this  subject.  At  page  55  of  How  to  Play  Golf  we 
find:  "A  word  about  the  varying  pressure  of  the 
grip  with  each  hand.  In  the  address  the  left  hand 
should  just  be  squeezing  the  handle  of  the  club, 
but  not  so  tightly  as  if  one  were  afraid  of  losing 
it.  The  right  hand  should  hold  the  club  a  little 
more  loosely.  The  left  hand  should  hold  firmly 
all  the  way  through.  The  right  will  open  a  little 
at  the  top  of  the  swing  to  allow  the  club  to  move 
easily,  but  it  should  automatically  tighten  itself 
in  the  downward  swing  " — which  by  the  way,  I  may 
say,  that  Vardon  very  wisely  warns  one  against, 


Brown  Bros.,  N.  Y. 

FRANCIS  OUIMET 
Top  of  Swing  in  the  Drive 


THE  NEW  GOLF  209 

for  the  obvious  reason  that  one  is  practically  sure 
to  go  into  the  tightening  up  process  at  an  incon- 
venient moment. 

If  I  were  not  a  person  of  infinite  patience  and 
some  degree  of  civilization  this  kind  of  stuff  would 
make  me  write  things  that  I  know  that  I  should 
never  dream  of  wanting  to  say  to  Braid  or  Var- 
don,  for  the  very  good  reason  that  they  would 
never  make  the  curious  statements  that  are  as- 
cribed to  them. 

This  " opening  up"  of  the  right  hand  at  the  top 
of  the  swing  is  wrong,  absolutely  wrong.  Braid 
himself  in  another  book  says  so.  Let  us  turn 
to  what  he  says  about  the  top  of  the  swing  in 
Advanced  Golf:  "Now  for  the  return  journey. 
Here  at  the  top,  arms,  wrists,  body — all  are  in  their 
highest  state  of  tension. " 

Now  how  can  "arms,  wrists,  body,"  all,  be  "in 
their  highest  state  of  tension,"  if  the  right  hand 
is  to  "  open  a  little  at  the  top  of  the  swing  to  allow 
the  club  to  move  easily"? 

The  instructions  are  absolutely  contradictory. 
I  may  therefore  be  excused  if  I  take  the  liberty 
of  saying  that  all  advice  from  any  one  about  eas- 
ing up  and  fooling  about  in  any  part  of  the  golf 
swing  before  impact  should  be  forgotten.  It  is 
business  from  the  moment  one  picks  up  one's  club 
after  addressing  the  ball;  and  at  the  top  of  the 


210  THE  NEW  GOLF 

drive  it  is  tension,  the  highest  tension  from  the 
word  "go."  In  fact  to  quote  Braid  "hard  at  it" 
from  the  beginning  of  the  downward  swing. 

How  is  it  possible  for  the  right  hand  to  "au- 
tomatically tighten  itself  in  the  downward  swing" 
if  it  is  already  in  its  "highest  state  of  tension," 
when  it  is  at  the  top  of  its  swing  and  Braid  gives 
explicit  instructions  that  it  must  be  kept  in  this 
condition  until  the  moment  of  impact? 

Braid  at  page  57  of  Advanced  Golf  says  of  this 
part  of  the  swing:  "Every  muscle  and  joint  in 
the  human  golfing  machinery  is  wound  up  to  the 
highest  point."  The  student  of  the  golf  swing 
will  do  well  to  remember  this  sentence.  I  have 
put  it  in  italics.  Bemember  also  that  Braid  is 
speaking  of  the  start  of  the  downward  swing. 
Remember  too,  if  it  is  correct,  as  it  practically  is, 
that  there  is  nothing  here  about  slack  fingers  or  a 
predominant  left  hand  but  just  that  ' '  every  muscle 
and  joint"  is  in  it  and  is  "wound  up  to  the  highest 
point. ' ' 

Now  we  must  take  the  testimony  of  J.  H.  Taylor. 
At  page  193  of  Taylor  on  Golf  we  are  told:  "My 
contention  is  simply  this:  that  the  grasp  of  the 
right  hand  upon  the  club  must  be  sufficiently  firm 
in  itself  to  hold  it  steady  and  true,  but  it  must  not 
be  allowed  on  any  account  to  over-power  the  left. 
The  idea  is  that  the  latter  arm  must  exercise  a 


THE  NEW  GOLF  211 

predominant  influence  in  every  stroke  that  may  be 
played.  As  regards  my  own  position  in  the  mat- 
ter, my  grip  with  either  hand  is  very  firm,  yet  I 
should  hesitate  before  I  told  every  golfer  to  go 
and  do  likewise. " 

I  am  surprised  to  note  Taylor's  hesitation.  If 
his  method  has  been  good  enough  to  give  him 
his  great  position,  why  is  it  not  good  enough  to 
recommend  to  those  who  look  to  him  for  guidance  I 
For  if  ever  there  was  a  famous  right  hand 
"  punch "  in  golf  it  is  what  Taylor  gets  out  of  his 
trusty  right  forearm. 

Taylor  really  is  the  worst  offender  of  the  Tri- 
umvirate in  advocating  the  use  of  the  left;  and 
the  curious  thing  is  that  of  the  famous  three  he  is 
the  outstanding  example  of  a  right-handed  hit- 
ter. 

At  page  107  of  Taylor  on  Golf  he  says:  "The 
club  is  brought  down  principally  by  the  left  wrist, 
the  right  doing  very  little  until  the  hands  are  op- 
posite the  right  leg,  when  it  begins  to  assert  itself, 
bringing  the  full  face  of  the  club  to  the  ball." 

Vardon  says  that  any  attempt  to  do  this  is  fatal. 
Braid  says  "hard  at  it"  from  the  top  and  in 
supreme  tension.  Taylor  grips  very  firmly  with 
both  hands.  Where,  oh  where,  can  this  easing  up 
and  tightening  up  and  bowing  and  scraping,  the 
right  to  the  left,  come  in?  The  answer  is 


212  THE  NEW  GOLF 

nowhere.  It  is  one  of  the  useless  traditions  that 
have  been  copied  out  of  one  golf  book  into  another 
without  proper  thought  or  analysis. 

Bear  with  me  yet  a  little  while,  for  this  may 
mean  no  less  than  a  revolution  of  your  game  and 
I  want  you  to  hear  what  the  greatest  golfers  have 
to  say  before  I  show  you  some  of  the  points  which 
seem  to  me  to  bear  on  it. 

Taylor  is  most  emphatic  about  it.  At  page  90 
of  Taylor  on  Golf  we  read:  "The  right  hand  is 
naturally  the  stronger  of  the  two — much  more 
powerful  in  the  average  man  than  the  left — and 
the  learner  is  just  as  naturally  prone  to  use  it. 
But  in  the  game  of  golf  he  must  keep  in  front  of 
him  at  all  times  the  fact  that  the  left  hand  should 
fill  the  position  of  guide,  and  it  must  have  the  pre- 
dominating influence  over  the  stroke. 

"That  this  is  rather  unnatural  I  am  perfectly 
willing  to  admit.  Its  being  unnatural  is  the  basis 
of  its  great  difficulty,  but  it  is  a  difficulty  that  must 
needs  be  grappled  with  and  overcome  by  any  man 
who  desires  to  play  the  game  as  it  should  be 
played." 

Well,  Taylor  himself  has  not  grappled  with  it 
and  overcome  it ;  yet  there  are  very  few  who  would 
be  bold  enough  to  say  that  he  does  not  "play  the 
game  as  it  should  be  played. " 

Is  it  not  curious  how  Vardon  wants  us  to  search 


THE  NEW  GOLF  213 

for  the  particular  style  of  putting  Dame  Nature 
put  up  for  us  and  Taylor  wants  us  to  fly  in  her  face 
and  shoo  her  away?  Verily  in  the  trinity  of  coun- 
selors there  is  confusion. 

In  the  volume  on  Golf  in  The  Badminton  Li- 
brary, Mr.  Horace  Hutchinson  says  at  page  85: 
"  Since,  as  will  be  shown  later  on,  the  club  has  to 
turn  in  the  right  hand  at  a  certain  point  in  the 
swing,  it  should  be  held  lightly  in  the  fingers, 
rather  than  in  the  palm,  with  that  hand.  In  the 
left  hand  it  is  to  be  held  well  home  in  the  palm,  and 
it  is  not  to  stir  from  this  position  throughout  the 
swing.  It  is  the  left  hand,  mainly,  that  communi- 
cates the  power  of  the  swing,  the  chief  function 
of  the  right  hand  is  as  a  guide  in  direction." 

Again  at  page  87  Mr.  Hutchinson  continues: 
'  '  So  much,  then,  for  the  grip.  Now,  when  the  club, 
in  the  course  of  its  swing  away  from  the  ball,  is 
beginning  to  rise  from  the  ground,  and  is  reaching 
the  horizontal  with  its  head  pointing  to  the  player's 
left,  it  should  be  allowed  to  turn  naturally  in  the 
right  hand  until  it  is  resting  upon  the  web  between 
the  forefinger  and  the  thumb." 

Mr.  Hutchinson  is  a  well-known  golfer  and  golf 
writer  in  England,  and  I  do  not  know  any  English 
golfer  whose  opinion  would  be  received  with  more 
respect  than  his ;  yet  we  see  that  he  subscribes  to 
the  popular  idea  of  the  power  of  the  left.  At 


2i4  THE  NEW  GOLF 

least  we  have  here  his  written  statement  and  I 
have  not  seen  any  recantation  of  it. 

It  will  indeed  be  hard  to  fit  in  James  Braid's 
instructions  in  Advanced  Golf  with  Mr.  Hutchin- 
son's  ideas. 

I  have  now  shown  you  the  ideas  of  three  of  the 
greatest  golfers  of  all  time  and  of  one  of  England 's 
most  distinguished  amateurs.  Surely  this  is  a 
weight  of  authority  to  stagger  up  against.  Per- 
haps my  best  way  is  to  tell  here  how  I  did  it  in 
London. 

I  wrote  an  article  which  was  published  in  The 
Evening  Standard  called,  if  I  remember,  "The 
Power  of  the  Left,"  in  which  I  ridiculed  the  moldy 
old  idea.  To  my  surprise,  on  opening  my  paper  I 
found  the  main  leader,  or  as  we  say  in  America, 
editorial,  devoted  to  my  article  and  saying  that  I 
was  putting  forth  what  was  actually  "a  new  dy- 
namics in  golf "  and  much  more  to  the  same  effect. 

Then  I  was  in  the  thick  of  it.  Anybody  who 
bursts  up  any  useless  old  tradition,  or  even  gives 
it  a  bump,  in  London,  is  a  fool,  a  faddist,  a  theorist, 
or  a  revolutionist.  If  he  does  not  recognize  this 
before  he  disturbs  any  of  the  dust  of  centuries, 
and  if  he  is  not  prepared  to  accept  the  position 
kindly  and  patiently — and  temporarily — he  de- 
serves all  that  is  coming  to  him — and  that  is 
much. 


THE  NEW  GOLF  215 

Much  came  to  me,  both  in  poetry  and  prose.  I 
give  here  a  sample  of  the  poetry.  This  was  pub- 
lished in  Truth.  I  thought  it  rather  amusing.  At 
light  verse  of  this  description  some  of  the  English 
writers  are  extraordinarily  good. 

THE  LEFT  HAND'S  LAMENT 
(Picked  up  on  the  links  at  St.  Andrews) 

Since  first  by  Heaven's  august  decree 
The  Royal  Ancient  game  was   planned 
I  always  was  allowed  to  be 
The  Master  Hand. 

To  me  did  textbooks  all  allot 
The  part  of  propulsative  strength; 
The  raking  drive,  the  brassie  shot— 
I  gave  them  length. 

The  Right  Hand  was — poor  thing — designed 
To  guide  the  club,  and  that  was  all; 
Mine  was  the  power  that  lay  behind 
The  far-hit  ball. 

Now  comes  there  one  upon  the  scene 
Whose  heresy  fair  turns  me  pale, 
The  Arius  of  the  golfing  green — 
A   wretch   named   Vaile. 

He  says  our  Vardons,  Braids  and  Whites 
Don't    golf's    dynamics    understand; 
Their  view  of  me's  all  wrong;  the  Right's 
The  master  hand. 


216  THE  NEW  GOLF 

If  fate  would  let  me  but  devise 
Some  torture  for  this  villain  bold 
Who  thus  would  revolutionize 
Golf's  credos  old. 

Oh,  then  to  ball  of  rubber  core 
I'd  change  him  for  a  tidy  spell 
And  drop   him  in   "The   Swilean"  or 
"The  Burn"   or  "Hell." 

I'd  lose  him  in  the  rock-strewn  sand 
Whence  few  topped  spheres  ejected  come 
Of   Musselburgh's   notorious  Pand- 
Emonium. 

What  I  had  to  put  up  with  in  prose  was  not 
nearly  so  amusing  and  it  was  not  at  all  clever. 
The  new  idea  had  stricken  the  golf  writers  stupid. 
They  wished  to  know  how  I  could  possibly  know, 
for  I  hadn't  found  it  out  in  Fleet  Street. 

When  some  degree  of  calm  had  been  restored, 
The  Evening  Standard  published  an  interview 
with  George  Duncan  in  which  the  famous  young 
Scotchman  not  only  said  in  the  most  unqualified 
manner  that  I  was  right,  but  gave  the  golf  public 
something  else  to  think  over. 

I  have  already  indicated  that  Duncan  is  of  an 
inquiring  turn  of  mind.  When  the  controversy 
started  he  went  out  and  drove  many  balls,  some 
with  both  hands,  some  with  his  right  alone,  and 


THE  NEW  GOLF  217 

some  with  his  left  alone.  He  found  that  driving 
with  the  right  hand  only  he  could  get  nearly  as 
far  as  with  both  hands  and  that  his  direction 
was  practically  as  good.  He  found  that  his  at- 
tempt to  drive  with  the  left  hand  unaided  was 
practically  a  failure  both  as  regards  length  and 
direction.  I  pity  the  person  who  is  foolish  enough 
to  try  to  argue  this  dour  young  Scot  into  the  idea 
that  his  left  hand  is  more  useful  to  him  in  the  drive 
than  his  right. 

There  is  one  question  on  which  I  always  upset 
the  left-handed  theorists.  They  argue  that  the  left 
is  the  predominant  influence  and  so  on,  after  the 
manner  of  the  golf  books.  I  then  ask  them,  if 
this  is  so,  why  left-handed  players  always,  or  prac- 
tically always,  throw  away  this  inestimable  ad- 
vantage of  having  their  most  important  hand 
placed  by  our  good  old  friend  Mother  Nature  in 
the  most  important  position,  turn  themselves  round 
and  get  special  clubs  made  for  them,  and  moreover 
use  them  mutatis  mutandis  in  just  the  same  man- 
ner as  we  poor  right-handed  players  do.  They 
never  have  a  satisfactory  answer  for  this.  When 
in  addition  to  this  I  ask  them  how  it  is  that  neither 
professionals  nor  books  ever  advocate  the  practise 
of  left-handers  learning  the  game  with  the  right- 
handed  clubs,  they  begin  to  display  signs  of  res- 


2i8  THE  NEW  GOLF 

tiveness ;  and  I  know  that  it  is  advisable  to  change 
the  subject  to  the  beneficial  effects  of  irrigation — 
which  generally  goes  better  about  this  time. 

I  say,  without  any  qualification  whatever,  that 
all  this  stuff  about  the  left  being  the  predominant 
partner  in  the  golf  stroke  is  false  teaching  of  the 
most  pernicious  nature.  The  right  hand  and  arm 
are  undoubtedly  the  predominating  force,  but  just 
as  certainly  as  this  is  the  fact,  so  is  it  absolutely 
essential  to  good  golf  that  once  one  has  realized 
this  eminently  sensible  and  natural  arrangement 
one  shall  immediately  forget  it,  for  this  is  where  it 
is  right  to  leave  it  to  Mother  Nature.  This  is  one 
thing  in  golf  in  which  one  may  trust  her  abso- 
lutely and  never  regret  it.  It  should  no  more  be  on 
one's  mind  that  the  right  is  master  than  is  the 
problem  as  to  which  foot  one  is  using  at  a  particu- 
lar moment.  The  matter  is  so  perfectly  adjusted 
and  regulated  by  nature  if  the  mechanical  details 
of  the  swing  are  attended  to  that  any  conscious 
attempt  to  think  of  the  relative  power  of  either 
hand,  arm  or  wrist  is  a  work  of  supererogation, 
and  in  golf  there  is  no  room  for  anything  like 
this. 

The  mischievous  thing  about  the  fetich  of  the 
left  is,  that  as  Taylor  says,  it  is  unnatural.  One 
has  to  think  always  to  do  anything  that  is  un- 
natural. 


THE  NEW  GOLF  219 

It  is  not  the  interference  of  the  right  arm  that 
is  to  blame  for  thousands  of  ruined  strokes  that 
go  down  to  its  discredit.  It  is  a  case  of  giving  a 
dog  a  bad  name.  The  left  really  is  in  a  vast 
majority  of  cases  the  guilty  party  without  its  guilt 
ever  being  suspected.  It  has  heard  the  old,  old 
story  of  the  vice  of  the  right,  and  it  is  always  on 
the  look-out  for  a  chance  to  slip  in  in  front  of  it 
and  frustrate  its  evil  designs  on  the  ball.  I  need 
not  detail  the  woful  results  in  slices  and  loss  of 
distance  that  ensue. 

A  chain  is  no  stronger  than  its  weakest  link. 
Speed  is  of  the  essence  of  the  golf  stroke.  It 
stands  to  reason  that  if  the  right  has  to  wait  on  the 
left  we  are  going  to  lose  speed  and  after  what 
George  Duncan  has  shown  us  we  can  have  little 
doubt  about  which  arm  furnishes  the  greater 
power. 

If  we  have  established  the  fact  that  the  right 
is  the  dominant  partner  in  the  swing  it  seems  that 
it  strengthens  my  remarks  about  the  new  overlap- 
ping grip  which  gives  the  right  hand  a  fuller  grip 
of  the  club  than  the  left.  When  I  know  a  thing,  or 
am  fairly  sure  about  it,  I  have  no  hesitation  in 
stating  my  opinion.  If  I  know  it,  or  think  I  know 
it,  I  sometimes  state  it  rather  positively.  If  I  am 
only  fairly  sure  I  put  it  forward  tentatively,  as  I 
am  doing  in  this  matter  of  the  new  grip,  but  there 


220  THE  NEW  GOLF 

are  two  points  about  it  which  I  think  are  worthy 
of  consideration. 

In  the  present  grip,  at  the  moment  of  impact 
the  left  hand  is  farther  from  the  ball  than  the 
right.  At  the  same  time  the  right  hand,  which  is 
necessarily  the  nearer  to  the  ball,  has  a  less  full 
grip  than  the  left  as  the  little  finger  is  placed 
upon  the  forefinger  of  the  left  hand.  It  is  always 
the  shaft  horse  that  bears  the  load.  Which  is  the 
shaft  horse  as  between  the  left  hand  and  the  right ; 
and  since  when,  pray,  has  it  been  good  harness- 
ing to  put  the  saddle  on  the  leader? 

As  bearing  on  this  question  of  the  right-handed 
grip  being  made  fuller  than  in  the  ordinary  over- 
lap I  may  tell  an  interesting  anecdote.  Some 
years  ago  a  golfer  who  was  good  enough  to  remove 
Mr.  John  Ball  from  the  Amateur  Championship 
lost  his  left  thumb  at  the  second  joint.  After  his 
misfortune  he  found,  much  to  his  surprise,  that  he 
was  driving  a  much  longer  ball  than  he  was  getting 
before. 

The  golf  scribes  were  much  exercised  over  this, 
but  nobody  suggested  any  explanation.  The  one 
that  readily  suggests  itself  is  that  his  accident  put 
his  right  hand  into  a  more  natural  place  on  the 
shaft  than  it  had  had  before  and  closer  to  his  left 
hand.  If  this  golfer  were  to  use  the  overlapping 
grip  suggested  by  me  he  would  probably  have  an 


ROBERT  A.  GARDNER 
Finish  of  Drive 


THE  NEW  GOLF  221 

ideal  golf  grip  for  he  would  have  a  full  right  hand 
hold,  be  close  up  against  the  left  without  any  in- 
terference by  the  thumb,  and  by  overlapping  with 
his  left  fore-finger  on  the  right  little  finger  he 
would  bring  the  wrists  well  together.  I  am  afraid 
that  the  grip,  obtained  in  this  way,  will  never  be 
popular;  but,  without  sacrificing  any  portion  of 
one's  anatomy,  the  new  grip  is  well  worth  an  in- 
telligent and  exhaustive  trial,  especially  by  those 
who  favor  the  short  swing,  for,  as  I  think  I  have 
pointed  out,  if  one  grips  like  this  and  holds  the 
club  firmly  throughout  the  swing,  it  is  practically 
impossible  to  overswing. 

The  main  trouble  in  connection  with  golf  writ- 
ing is  that  nearly  all  the  great  professionals  have 
thousands  of  books  in  circulation  telling  unfor- 
tunate golfers  how  to  become  great  by  a  route  that 
they  themselves  never  traveled.  Needless  to  say 
the  handicap  to  the  ordinary  golfer  is  immense. 
If  I  merely  sat  down  and  wrote  the  truth  I  could 
excuse  any  one  who  used  the  weight  of  sixteen 
open  championships  and  many  others  against  me. 
It  is  quite  another  thing  when  I  show  how  clearly 
the  winners  of  these  championships  contradict  each 
other,  and  even  themselves,  and  I  then  put  the  sim- 
ple obvious  truth  before  the  inquirer  and  say, 
"Now  shed  the  light  of  your  reason  on  it,  my  lad." 
It  really  is  very  simple  when  you  have  it  explained 


222  THE  NEW  GOLF 

by  some  one  who  knows,  who  is  not  merely  grop- 
ing for  words,  more  words,  mere  words.  Ver- 
biage, verbosity,  verbigeration,  truly  your  com- 
posite name  in  English  is  golf  book! 

I  have  received  letters  of  thanks  and  acknow- 
ledgments of  all  kinds  from  all  parts  of  the  world 
from  people  whom  I  have  released  from  the  thral- 
dom of  the  fetich  of  the  left.  Here  is  what  an 
American  professional  at  San  Antonio,  Texas,  has 
to  say:  "It  has  taken  me  years  of  persistent  ef- 
fort to  bury  the  many  prejudices  against  the 
proper  use  of  the  right  arm,  but  they  must  go,  and 
I  am  glad  to  see  you  have  voiced  sentiments  strong 
enough  to  make  men  stop  and  think  over  the  situa- 
tion. Let  us  hope  they  will  act." 

In  which  pious  hope  I  naturally  join;  and  with 
that  I  am  content  now  to  leave  the  final  judgment 
— so  far  as  it  affects  you — with  you. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE    GOLF   CLUB 

GOLF  is  so  well  played  nowadays  that  it  is 
scarcely  exaggeration  to  call  it  an  exact  science. 
Certainly  those  who  excel  at  it  require  to  play  it 
with  almost  mathematical  precision.  For  this  rea- 
son, if  for  no  other,  it  behooves  the  intelligent 
player  to  see  to  it  that  he  is  provided  with  the  best 
possible  implements  wherewith  to  play  the  game. 

Consideration  of  this  question  opens  up  at  once 
a  wide  field  of  debate  which  goes  to  the  very  heart 
of  the  principle  of  the  modern  golf  club.  Origi- 
nally every  ball-striking  implement  was  crooked, 
or  curved.  The  cricket-bat  was  a  kind  of  curved 
club.  It  has  been  straightened.  The  "crosse" 
used  in  la-crosse  was  originally  so  made  that  the 
blow  fell  off  the  line  of  the  handle.  That  has  now 
been  altered.  The  tennis  racket  was  in  the  old 
days  lop-sided.  Even  the  billiard  cue  was  crooked, 
the  original  billiard  cue  being  shaped  like  the 
ladies'  bagatelle  cue. 

These,  however,  have  all  been  straightened,  and 
there  is  a  general  tendency  on  the  part  of  all  ball 

223 


224  THE  NEW  GOLF 

striking  implements  to  come  into  line  with  the 
principle  of  having  the  point  of  impact  in  line  with 
the  shaft  or  handle. 

This  is  shown  in  a  marked  degree  even  in  those 
clubs  or  bats  which  retain  the  curve  or  angle  be- 
tween the  shaft  or  handle  and  the  striking  portion. 
For  instance,  the  hockey-stick  has  had  its  head 
much  curtailed  in  order  to  bring  the  striking  point 
nearer  to  the  handle,  as  it  is  recognized  that  this 
gives  greater  power  and  accuracy. 

Those  who  are  familiar  with  the  construction  of 
the  old  golf  clubs  will  remember  that  the  head  was 
very  long.  In  the  modern  golf  club,  especially  in 
the  driver,  the  tendency  is  to  "ball"  the  head  as 
close  as  possible  to  the  shaft,  and  Harry  Vardon 
in  The  Complete  Golfer  says  that  this  tendency  is 
justified  by  results. 

There  cannot  be  the  least  possible  doubt  of  this. 
The  tendency  to  put  the  point  of  impact  in  line 
with  the  shaft  marks  the  irresistible  march  of 
progress  in  the  evolution  of  ball  striking  imple- 
ments and  in  due  course  the  golf  club  must  both 
metaphorically  and  actually  "come  into  line." 

In  the  "  Schenectady  "  putter,  a  very  well-known 
club,  the  principle  was  carried  a  step  farther,  inas- 
much as  the  shaft  was  made  to  come  out  of  the 
head  very  nearly  at  the  center.  This  was  a  per- 
fectly proper  and  legitimate  development  of  the 


THE  NEW  GOLF  225 

golf  club,  but  this  club  was  barred  by  the  Koyal 
and  Ancient  Golf  Club  of  St.  Andrews  on  its  links. 
The  United  States  Golf  Association  very  properly 
ignored  the  ruling  and  the  "Schenectady"  remains 
to  this  day  one  of  the  most  popular  putters  in 
America. 

In  the  "Vaile"  putter  I  have  carried  the  center 
shafted  principle  to  the  full  length.  The  shaft 
runs  in  a  straight  line  towards  the  center  of  the 
club 's  face,  but  at  about  two  inches  from  the  head 
the  socket  turns  at  an  angle  and  runs  into  the  heel 
of  the  club. 

Neither  of  these  clubs  contains  any  principle 
which  is  not  expressed  and  embodied  in  the  time- 
honored  St.  Andrews  putter  with  its  curved  shaft. 
Instead  of  allowing  the  curve  to  sprawl  all  over 
the  shaft  I  have  concentrated  it  at  the  socket.  My 
putter  is  simply  a  modernized  form  of  the  revered 
St.  Andrews  putter.  I  put  it  up  to  the  rules  com- 
mittee of  The  Eoyal  and  Ancient  Club  to  say 
whether  my  club  was  a  legal  club  or  not  on  their 
links.  I  had  an  object  in  doing  so. 

They  decided  that  it  was  not  a  legal  club.  Then 
I  showed  them  what  they  had  done  by  the  famous 
— or  infamous — "  mallet "  resolution.  They  had 
barred  the  old  "St.  Andrews"  putter  and  almost 
every  club  in  every  bag  on  every  links.  Certainly 
every  socketed  driver  is  an  illegal  club ;  so  also  is 


226  THE  NEW  GOLF 

every  iron  club  where  the  shaft  runs  into  the  head, 
for,  according  to  their  ruling,  the  head  must  be 
"all  on  one  side  of  the  shaft"! 

It  is  of  course  sheer  futility  to  speak  of  the 
"Schenectady"  as  a  mallet-headed  club.  Any 
mallet  I  ever  used  or  saw  was  longer  in  the  driv- 
ing line  than  across  it.  That  is  the  essential  prin- 
ciple of  a  mallet,  it  seems  to  me.  How  then  can 
the  "Schenectady"  be  called  a  club  made  on  the 
mallet  principle. 

I  am  dealing  at  length  with  this  matter,  for  I 
am  sure  that  it  is  of  fundamental  importance  to 
the  game  and  that  it  will  recur  again  and  again 
and  ultimately  in  such  an  acute  form  that  prob- 
ably The  Koyal  and  Ancient  Club  will  have  to  re- 
consider its  ill-advised  attempt  to  define,  or  par- 
tially to  define,  a  golf  club. 

More  than  seventy  per  cent,  of  the  golf  clubs 
now  used  'are  illegal  according  to  the  rules  of  St. 
Andrews.  The  position  of  this  club  in  the  world 
of  golf  is  quite  anomalous,  is  not  for  the  best  in- 
terest of  the  game,  and  should  be  altered.  Noth- 
ing more  ridiculous  can  very  well  be  imagined  than 
the  simple  fact  that  on  St.  Andrews  your  open 
champion  is  not  allowed  to  use  his  favorite  putter, 
an  implement  whose  fame  was  made  by  another 
American  golfer,  who  mainly  by  its  assistance  won 
the  British  amateur  championship. 


THE  NEW  GOLF  227 

The  march  of  progress  is  closer  and  ever  closer 
towards  the  shaft,  and  its  "  logical  conclusion, " 
to  use  the  well-worn  phrase,  will  not  have  been 
reached  until  we  are  driving  from  a  point  in  line 
with  the  shaft  of  the  club.  When  this  is  done 
there  will  be  increased  accuracy  in  the  game  and 
increased  enjoyment  in  it  for  many  thousands  of 
players  who  now  suffer  because  of  the  unscientific 
construction  of  the  golf  club. 

The  American  is  a  keen  and  analytical  sports- 
man. He  is  already  on  the  way  to  the  truth ;  but 
in  the  Schenectady  putter  he  is  merely  paltering 
with  the  principle.  He  is  only  half  way  to  the 
actual  thing.  It  will  not  be  long  before  this  is 
realized  and  then  we  shall  see  a  revolution  in  the 
manufacture  of  golf  clubs. 

Vardon's  actual  words  in  speaking  of  the  short 
head  were :  t  '  The  tendency  of  late  years  has  been 
to  make  the  heads  of  wooden  clubs  shorter  and 
still  shorter,  and  this  tendency  is  well  justified. ' ' 

Perhaps  the  greatest  structural  defect  in  golf 
clubs  outside  of  that  already  mentioned  is  the  nar- 
row face.  Far  too  many  golf  clubs  have  narrow 
faces.  Generally  speaking  the  narrow  faced  club 
is  a  delusion  and  a  snare.  Eather  should  the  faces 
be  deeper.  Especially  is  this  so  with  many 
wooden  clubs.  I  am  convinced  that  without  alter- 
ing the  balance  or  adjustment  of  weight  materially 


228  THE  NEW  GOLF 

it  would  be  an  improvement  to  give  many  of  the 
wooden  clubs  a  little  more  depth  in  the  face.  As 
they  are  now  they  lack  "room"  for  some  of  the 
finest  shots  in  the  game. 

The  American  rule  on  the  subject  of  the  con- 
struction of  golf  clubs  reads  as  follows : 

Form  and  make  of  golf  clubs. 

The  United  States  Golf  Association  will  not 
sanction  any  substantial  departure  from  the  tra- 
ditional and  accepted  form  and  make  of  golf  clubs, 
which,  in  its  opinion,  consists  of  a  plain  head  shaft 
and  a  head  which  does  not  contain  any  mechanical 
contrivance,  such  as  springs;  it  also  regards  as 
illegal  the  use  of  such  clubs  as  those  of  the  mallet- 
headed  type,  or  such  clubs  as  have  the  neck  so  bent 
as  to  produce  a  similar  effect. 

The  shaft  of  a  putter  may  be  fixed  at  the  heel 
or  at  any  other  point  in  the  head. 

The  term  mallet-headed,  as  above  used,  when 
applied  to  putters,  does  not  embrace  putters  of  the 
so-called  Schenectady  type.  U.  S.  Gr.  A. 

I  think  it  was  a  great  pity  that  the  United  States 
followed  St.  Andrews'  questionable  lead  in  any 
way.  The  good  sense  and  sportsmanlike  spirit 
of  the  golfer  would  at  all  times  have  been  sufficient 
safeguard  for  the  interests  of  the  game.  As  the 


THE  NEW  GOLF  229 

rule  at  present  stands  it  is  bad.  The  full  inter- 
pretation of  the  St.  Andrews  authorities  about  the 
head  being  all  on  one  side  of  the  shaft  is  not  in- 
cluded in  the  copy  of  the  rules  that  I  have. 

Under  the  American  rules  one  might  be  excused 
for  asking  how  can  the  neck  of  a  club  be  so  bent 
as  to  produce  a  mallet  effect.  What  they  really 
mean,  but  do  not  express,  is  a  center  shaft  effect, 
and  it  would  indeed  be  a  great  mistake  if  they  were 
to  try  to  introduce  such  legislation.  A  club  with 
the  center  shafted  effect  is  always  a  better  driver 
than  one  with  a  straight  handle,  if  the  effect  is 
properly  obtained. 

A  friend  one  day  handed  me  an  old  driver  and 
said,  1 ' 1  cannot  understand  how  it  is,  Vaile,  I  can 
always  get  thirty  yards  farther  with  this  club  than 
any  other  and  I  am  always  on  the  line  with  it. 
Can  you  explain  it?" 

I  ran  my  eye  along  the  shaft  and  saw  that  it  had 
a  most  pronounced  warp  so  that  it  was  bowed 
quite  a  lot  towards  the  line  of  flight,  speaking  now 
of  the  club  as  at  the  address.  I  told  my  friend 
that  he  had,  in  effect,  a  center  shafted  club  for  the 
warp  in  his  shaft  was  the  same  thing  as  the  curve 
in  the  old  St.  Andrews  putter  and  as  my  angle  at 
the  neck  of  the  Vaile  clubs,  that  he  had  by  accident 
got  hold  of  a  club  that  was  scientifically  con- 
structed or  had  taken  on  a  proper  shape  on  ac- 


230  THE  NEW  GOLF 

count  of  climatic  effect.  There  is  a  young  pro- 
fessional in  America  who  strips  the  shaft  of  every 
driver  he  gets  until  he  produces  this  effect.  He  is 
one  of  the  longest  and  straightest  drivers  in  Amer- 
ica. I  sometimes  wonder  what  would  he  the  result 
if  some  cantankerous  person  seriously  challenged 
the  stupid  ' '  anti-mallet "  rule.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  there  never  was  any  necessity  for  it.  It  really 
started  from  the  innocent  question  of  a  little  club 
in  New  Zealand  called  the  Nga  Motu  Golf  Club. 
They  made  golf  history  by  asking  if  it  was  legal 
for  one  to  use  a  club  fashioned  like  a  small  cro- 
quet mallet.  St.  Andrews  seized  on  the  oppor- 
tunity to  perform  a  work  of  supererogation  and 
used  its  official  position  to  oppose  the  scientific 
evolution  of  the  golf  club. 

Can  any  one  imagine  a  person,  in  an  event  of 
any  importance,  daring  to  appear  on  a  green  with 
"a  small  croquet  mallet "?  I  think  not,  indeed. 
Nor  would  any  one  who  knew  anything  about  golf 
be  so  stupid  as  to  try  to  do  so,  for,  as  I  have 
shown,  the  deep  (in  this  case  it  would  be  the  long) 
sole  is  an  added  chance  of  error,  without  any 
adequate  advantage  that  cannot  be  obtained  bet- 
ter in  another  way;  for  instance,  by  shifting  the 
shaft  of  the  "Schenectady"  into  the  center  of  the 
club,  or,  rather,  so  that  the  center  line  of  its  shaft 
cuts  the  point  of  impact,  thus  making  it  a  true 


THE  NEW  GOLF  231 

center- shafted  club  and  therefore  a  better  golf  im- 
plement than  it  now  is.  If  this  were  done,  nobody 
with  any  sense  of  the  meaning  of  words  could 
speak  of  its  mallet  principle,  unless  perchance  the 
owner  took  to  putting  with  the  actual  heel  instead 
of  the  face! 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE   GOLF   BALL 

I  DO  not  intend  to  inflict  on  my  readers  a  history 
of  the  evolution  of  the  golf  ball.  There  is  really 
comparatively  little  to  tell  that  is  not  generally 
known  of  the  outstanding  characteristics  of  the 
ball  since  the  days  of  the  old  feather  ball,  down 
through  the  "guttie,"  which  we  then  thought  was 
the  last  word  in  golf  balls,  until  the  rubber-core 
passed  it  into  the  ranks  of  the  "  has-beens. " 

What  the  golfer  of  to-day  is  concerned  with  is 
the  ball  he  now  uses,  and  in  that  he  has  a  very 
great,  in  fact  a  consuming,  interest.  I  had  this 
brought  home  to  me  in  a  most  remarkable  manner 
in  London  some  years  ago.  I  had  written  for 
various  reviews,  magazines  and  newspapers 
articles  on  almost  everything  connected  with  golf. 
I  had  had  no  cause  to  complain  of  any  lack  of  in- 
terest in  my  articles.  I  generally  approached  my 
subject  from  an  angle  different  from  the  ordinary 
view-point,  and  until  one  earns  one's  right  to  do 
this  in  London  it  comes  nigh  to  sacrilege ;  indeed, 

232 


©  Brown  Bros.,  N.  Y. 

CHARLES  EVANS,  JR. 
Finish  of  Drive 


THE  NEW  GOLF  233 

when  golf  is  the  subject,  it  is  a  question  if  it  is 
not  more  than  sacrilege  to  introduce  new  thought, 
even  gently  to  agitate  the  cobwebs  of  tradition. 

Well,  as  I  have  said,  I  had  plenty  of  evidence 
of  general  interest  in  my  work ;  but  one  day  I  took 
it  into  my  head  to  attack  the  marking  of  the 
modern  golf  ball,  as  being  unscientific  in  the  ex- 
treme and  prejudicial  to  the  flight  and  accuracy 
of  the  ball.  My  objection  rested  mainly  on  two 
grounds,  that  it  was  by  excrescence  instead  of  by 
indentation,  and  that  in  any  case  the  marking 
was  excessive. 

This  controversy  was  easily  the  greatest  in  the 
history  of  golf.  It  ran  for  four  months,  and  dur- 
ing that  period  many  interesting  and  amusing 
things  were  said  and  done. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  look  on  the  face  of  the 
editor  of  The  Evening  Standard,  who  published 
my  first  article  on  the  subject,  when  I  said  to  him 
simply — and  modestly  I  hope — "I  am  going  to 
knock  the  pimple  off  the  golf  ball." 

1 '  That  certainly  will  take  some  doing, '  >  he  said. 
"Yes,  indeed,"  I  replied,  "but  it  will  be  some 
fun" — and  it  was.  Well,  the  pimple,  or  bramble, 
has  not  yet  become  obsolete,  but  before  many  years 
have  gone  by  we  shall  find  it  only  in  museums  and 
collections. 

The  origin  of  the  marking  of  the  golf  ball  is 


234  THE  NEW  GOLF 

fairly  well  known.  The  old  feather  balls  were 
smooth  and  they  were  erratic  in  their  flight. 
After  they  had  been  played  with  a  little  and  had 
been  hacked  about  and  marked  it  was  found  that 
they  held  to  the  line  of  flight  better.  After  this 
they  were  marked  by  hammering  and  this  was  a 
great  improvement. 

When  the  gutta  percha  ball  came  in  it  also  was 
marked.  Probably  the  best  and  simplest  mark- 
ing ever  used  was  the  sunken  line,  if  I  may  so 
describe  it.  This  consisted  of  small  grooved  lines 
running  in  circles  round  the  ball.  There  were 
two  poles  at  right  angles  to  each  other,  thus  the 
lines  of  the  circles,  which  of  course  varied  in  size 
as  they  were  regulated  from  the  pole  to  the  equa- 
tor, cut  each  other  as  they  crossed.  This  divided 
the  ball  roughly  speaking  into  small  squares 
each  of  which  was  surrounded  by  grooves  or 
sunken  lines.  This  ball  both  carried  and  rolled 
perfectly.  I  never  heard  a  complaint  about  it, 
and  the  marking  held  its  own  for  a  long  time.  Of 
course  there  were  many  variations  but  there  was 
nothing  that  proved  superior  to  this  marking  in 
any  respect  whatever. 

Then  came  the  rubber-core  and  with  it  a  host  of 
new  markings,  most  of  them  grotesque  and  hap- 
hazard and  introduced  absolutely  without  thought, 
indeed,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  by  people  who 


THE  NEW  GOLF  235 

were  incapable  of  the  kind  of  thought  necessary 
to  deal  with  a  subject  such  as  this. 

We  had  arrived  at  this  condition  of  affairs  when 
I  published  my  first  article  on  the  subject.  I  told 
the  editor  of  The  Evening  Standard  that  there 
would  be  an  immense  outcry  from  the  trade. 
There  was.  He  sent  an  assistant  to  interview 
them  about  my  ideas.  They  were  quite  satisfied 
that  I  was  a  fit  subject  for  "inquiry"  as  to  my 
mental  condition.  The  idea  was  preposterous.  I 
was  a  mere  theorist.  In  fact  it  was  the  usual 
thing.  They  were  practically  unanimous  in  their 
opinion  that  my  opinion  didn't  amount  to  any- 
thing anyway. 

This  interview  was  duly  published  and  my 
friends  all  sympathized  with  me  until  I  got  tired 
of  telling  them  that  I  had  caused  it  to  be  done,  as 
I  wanted  to  get  the  trade  opinion  on  record,  where 
they  could  not  go  back  on  it.  Also  I  explained  to 
them  that  the  trade,  from  a  trade  point  of  view, 
was  quite  right  to  say  that  I  was  foolish.  They 
had  millions  of  foolish  balls  to  sell  and  my  ideas 
would  not  assist  in  selling  them. 

The  controversy  became  furious.  About  this 
time  Professor  Sir  J.  J.  Thomson  delivered  his 
famous  lecture  on  The  Dynamics  of  the  Golf  Ball 
before  the  Eoyal  Institute  of  Great  Britain.  I 
thought  that  possibly  he  might  be  able  to  shed 


236  THE  NEW  GOLF 

some  light  on  the  disputed  points  so  I  asked  him 
if  he  could  explain  why  a  smooth  golf  ball  will  not 
fly  truly,  while  a  properly  marked,  or  indeed  an 
over-marked,  ball  will  respond  to  the  influence  of 
the  driving  force  consistently  until  the  marking 
gets  knocked  off  it. 

Professor  Thomson  was  constrained  to  admit 
that  he  did  not  know  the  reason,  and  in  his  lecture 
he  did  not  make  any  attempt  whatever  to  explain 
this  phenomenon.  I  have  never  seen  it  explained, 
and  I  am  not  positive  that  I  can  explain  it,  but  I 
intend  to  try  and  to  put  it  up  to  some  one  else  to 
show  that  I  am  wrong  and  to  produce  the  real  ex- 
planation, or  one  that  is  better  than  mine.  I  need 
not  be  ashamed  if  I  fail,  for  in  my  lack  of  know- 
ledge— if  so  it  be — I  shall  have  much  good  com- 
pany. 

We  all  know  that  nothing  flies  well  without  a 
tail.  Bob  a  bird  of  its  tail  and  it  is  nearly  as  bad 
as  a  ship  without  its  rudder.  Try  to  shoot  an 
arrow  without  a  tail  and  certain  it  is  that  it  will 
fall  to  earth  you  know  not  even  whereabouts, 
until  it  has  done  it.  Can  you  imagine  a  kite  flying 
well  without  a  tail?  Where  would  an  aeroplane 
be  without  a  tail ;  and  so  I  might  go  on  for  quite  a 
while,  but  let  me  come  to  something  more  nearly 
resembling  our  golf  ball. 

The  old  round  bullet  was  not  remarkable  for 


THE  NEW  GOLF  237 

the  length  of  its  carry  nor  for  its  direction  until 
we  gave  it  a  tail,  by  providing  it  with  extra  length 
and  putting  a  hole  in  one  end  wherein  we  inserted 
a  conical  wedge  of  wood  that  on  the  explosion 
pressed  the  butt  end  of  the  bullet  open  until  it  en- 
gaged the  grooving  of  the  rifle,  thus  giving  the 
bullet  a  spin,  and  providing  it  with  what  in  effect 
was  a  small  flange  at  its  tail,  for  the  bullet  did  not 
then  take  the  grooving  on  its  solid  part  if  I  am 
correctly  informed. 

That,  however,  and  its  modern  development  do 
not  concern  us.  We  know  that  the  modern  bullet 
flies  better  than  the  round  bullet  did  and  we  know 
that  it  is  longer  and  that  it  carries  spin.  We  know 
that  it  holds  to  its  course  better.  It  may  be  wrong 
to  say  that  it  has  a  tail.  It  would  seem  at  first 
that  it  is,  but  in  effect  it  is  almost  as  much  entitled 
to  a  "head"  and  a  "tail"  as  an  arrow. 

Now,  we  must  come  back  to  the  golf  ball.  It 
has  always  seemed  to  me  that  the  main  reason 
why  the  smooth  golf  ball  will  not  fly  straight  is 
not  because  it  has  no  tail,  but  because  it  cannot 
keep  its  tail  on.  That  requires  some  explana- 
tion. 

It  will  readily  be  admitted  that  the  air  in  front 
of  a  swiftly  driven  golf  ball  must  be  somewhat 
compressed.  It  also  seems  reasonable  to  assume 
that  there  is,  immediately  behind  the  ball,  some- 


238  THE  NEW  GOLF 

thing  resembling  a  vacuum  in  that  the  air  must  be 
thinned  to  compensate  for  what  is  going  on  in 
front  of  the  ball.  We  all  know  the  old  saying 
that  "Nature  abhors  a  vacuum."  Probably  this 
is  correct.  If  so,  we  know  that  Nature  is  doing 
her  best  to  fill  up  the  space  behind  the  ball,  from 
the  condensed  air  in  front,  until  that  which  is  be- 
hind the  ball  regains  its  normal  density. 

This  operation  means  a  continual  flow  around 
the  ball  of  air  that  is  denser  than  the  ordinary 
atmosphere.  I  am  speaking  in  this  case  of  a  ball 
without  spin.  In  the  ball  that  is  marked  by 
excrescences  this  condensed  air  is  flowing  in  be- 
tween them  and  perhaps  over  them,  in  the  ball  that 
is  marked  by  dimples  it  is  flowing  in  and  out  of 
them,  in  the  ball  that  is  marked  by  communicating 
indentations  it  is  flowing  through  such  indenta- 
tions regularly  and  perhaps  over-flowing. 

In  each  of  these  cases  there  is  a  "stream"  of 
condensed  air  flowing  over  the  surface  of  the  ball 
on  its  way  back  to  regain  normal  density  at,  say 
an  inch  or  maybe  two,  behind  the  ball.  Some  will 
say  of  course  that  the  air  is  constant  and  that  it 
is  the  ball  that  is  moving.  I  think  that  my  way 
of  putting  it  makes  my  idea  clearer  and  we  may 
leave  it  to  the  scientists  to  improve  on  it. 

It  thus  happens  that  our  rough  golf  ball  is  pro- 
vided with  a  tail  of  compressed  air,  or  should  I 


THE  NEW  GOLF  239 

say  that  it  flies  in  a  cylinder  of  compressed  air 
which  holds  it  to  its  flight? 

Now  supposing  that  this  explanation  is  correct 
what  explanation  have  we  to  offer  of  the  remark- 
ably erratic  flight  of  the  smooth  golf  ball.  I  have 
had  them  made  to  my  order  with  varying  degrees 
of  fineness  in  the  marking  and  the  manner  in  which 
the  smooth  balls  ducked  and  soared  and  swerved 
was  most  remarkable.  They  were  as  erratic  in 
flight  as  a  butterfly.  How  is  this  to  be  accounted 
for? 

The  only  reason  I  can  advance  is  that  on  account 
of  the  smooth  ball  having  nothing  to  hold  it  into 
the  condensed  air  cushion  in  front  of  it,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  marked  ball,  when  the  pressure  in  front 
becomes  excessive  the  ball  " slips  it"  and  starts 
off  on  the  line  of  least  resistance  to  look  for  an- 
other chance  to  repeat  its  performance.  Some 
people  would  argue  that  this  is  unlikely,  that 
the  pressure  must  be  equal  all  round,  in  front  at 
least,  and  so  forth.  That  might  be  technically 
correct  were  we  dealing  with  a  perfect  sphere  of 
homogeneous  quality  but  we  all  know,  to  our  cost, 
the  rubber-cored  golf  ball  is  frequently  not  a 
perfect  sphere,  and  that  its  center  of  gravity  is 
very  often  not  in  the  place  where  we  had  hoped 
it  was — especially  when  we  are  about  two  feet  six 
inches  from  the  hole ! 


240  THE  NEW  GOLF 

That  is  the  best  explanation  I  can  give  of  a  mat- 
ter that  has  proved  a  mystery  to  England's  lead- 
ing physicist.  If  it  stimulates  some  one  to  produce 
something  more  illuminating  I  shall  be  pleased. 
In  literary  work,  as  in  golf,  I  like  generally  to  do 
those  things  I  know  how  to  do,  but  he  is  a  poor 
sportsman  who  will  not  risk  a  shot  when  it  seems 
to  him  to  be  the  only  one  to  play,  because  he  does 
not  know  it  perfectly. 

Shortly  after  the  beginning  of  the  great  contro- 
versy about  the  relative  merits  of  marking  by  in- 
dentation and  by  excrescence  I  had  a  number  of 
golf  balls  with  varying  degrees  of  indentation 
made  for  me.  My  readers  must  understand  that 
this  is  an  expensive  amusement  for  those  who  have 
to  pay  the  bills.  Each  pattern  cost  for  the  mold 
alone  over  fifty  dollars,  not  to  mention  time  and 
other  incidentals. 

I  had  asserted  that  the  modern  bramble  or 
pimple  marking  was  unscientific  and  excessive.  I 
thought  that  it  was  " up  to  me"  to  prove  it.  I  had 
a  golf  ball  with  an  extremely  fine  marking  made. 
I  had  decided  that  I  should  start  at  the  other  ex- 
treme and  find  the  mean.  When  this  ball  was 
painted  the  paint  filled  up  the  interstices.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  trial  of  that  ball.  The  erratic 
nature  of  its  flight  was  the  most  remarkable  thing 
of  its  kind  that  I  had  ever  seen.  George  Duncan 


THE  NEW  GOLF  241 

and  I  tried  it  out.  It  zigzagged  and  soared  and 
ducked  in  a  manner  that  was  to  me  at  that  time 
truly  incomprehensible.  It  set  me  seeking  for 
the  explanation  which  perhaps  I  have  not  got  yet. 

I  knew  of  course  that  all  I  had  to  do  was  to  in- 
crease the  size  of  the  indentations.  I  saved  a  lot 
of  time  by  producing  the  ' '  Vaile ' '  ball.  This  was 
the  first  rubber-cored  ball  to  be  marked  by  indenta- 
tions. It  was  the  old  two-pole  cross-circle  mark- 
ing. The  ball,  as  indeed  I  knew  it  must,  both  flew 
and  ran  perfectly.  You  will  ask  me  of  course 
why  I  am  not  running  it  commercially  if  it  was  a 
success.  It  is  a  perfectly  fair  question  and  the 
answer  will  amuse  you,  for  it  is  not  one  that  you, 
or  I,  would  expect  in  England.  Golfers  said  that 
the  marking  was  too  much  like  that  of  the  old  gut- 
tie! 

It  certainly  was  not  too  much  like  it.  It  was 
the  same  marking.  There  never  was  a  better 
marking  for  a  golf  ball  and  I  doubt  if  there  ever 
will  be.  I  was  the  first  to  put  it  on  the  rubber- 
cored  ball,  where  it,  and  nothing  else,  should  be 
to-day.  Any  slight  deviation  of  flight  can  be  im- 
mediately corrected  by  altering  the  depth  and 
width  of  the  lines  by  the  minutest  fraction  of  an 
inch. 

I  need  not  now  emphasize  the  change  in  thought 
that  has  taken  place  with  regard  to  the  marking 


242  THE  NEW  GOLF 

of  the  golf  ball.  It  is  no  longer  King  Pimple,  and 
the  good  London  tradesmen  who  said  rude  things 
about  me  are  selling  and  praising  millions  of 
dimple  balls  which  would  be  much  better  fliers,  if 
they  only  knew  it,  if  the  dimples  had  communica- 
tion trenches. 

What  would  a  champion  billiard  player  think 
of  one  who  suggested  to  him  that  it  would  improve 
the  run  of  the  balls  if  one  were  to  put  little  lumps 
all  over  them.  Well,  be  it  remembered,  that  the 
effect  is  the  same  on  a  billiard  table  and  a  putting 
green.  The  degree  is  what  varies. 

Following  this  illustration  it  is  easy  to  see  that 
if  one  cuts  grooves  into  a  billiard  ball  it  would 
affect  the  truth  of  its  running  much  less  than  the 
same  sized  excrescences  would,  or  to  confine  the 
example  to  pimples  and  dimples,  a  golf  ball  could 
rest  on  one  dimple,  but  it  requires  three  or  four 
pimples  to  hold  it  steady.  This  is  about  the  rela- 
tive reliability  or  stability  in  the  final  test  of  roll- 
ing on  a  perfect  plane. 

It  is  in  short  puts  on  fiery  greens  that  the  vice 
of  the  bramble  marking  shows  itself.  If  in  addi- 
tion to  this,  the  golfer  is  ill-advised  enough  to  use 
a  shallow-faced  putter,  he  will  indeed  require  our 
sympathy. 

This  question  of  bramble  marking  is  of  more 
importance  as  one  nears  the  hole.  Very  many 


THE  NEW  GOLF  243 

people  cannot  believe  how  little  it  takes  to  put  a 
two  foot  put  off  the  line.  Suppose  in  such  a  put 
one  hits  a  pimple  fairly  on  the  head  and  it  hap- 
pens to  lie  across  the  line  to  the  hole  and  not  in  it. 
Will  it  affect  the  direction?  Undoubtedly.  It 
would  not  matter  in  an  approach  put.  The 
strength  would  overcome  the  crudity  of  your  im- 
plements and  would  hold  the  ball  up  against  the 
irregularities  of  its  surface,  but  it  is  less  so  as  one 
gets  nearer  to  the  hole. 

I  must  give  here  an  instance  from  another  game 
that  seems  to  me  quite  apposite.  A  tennis  racket 
was  introduced  some  years  ago  for  which  the  in- 
ventor claimed  superior  power  to  obtain  cut  be- 
cause every  intersection  of  the  strings  was  knot- 
ted. One  could  indeed  get  a  great  degree  of 
spin  with  this  racket,  but  it  was  found  that  in  the 
delicate  volleys  at  the  net  the  knots  interfered 
badly  with  the  accuracy  of  the  stroke,  so  much  in- 
deed, as  to  render  the  racket  quite  useless  for 
practical  tennis.  The  same  thing  exists,  near  the 
hole  particularly,  with  the  ball  that  is  marked 
by  pimples,  brambles  or  any  other  excres- 
cences. 

Any  chapter  on  the  golf  ball  would  be  incom- 
plete without  some  account  of  the  remarkable 
series  of  experiments  conducted  by  Sir  Ealph 
Payne-Gallwey,  the  famous  wild-fowler  and  author 


244  THE  NEW  GOLF 

of  The  Projectile  Throwing  Engines  of  the  An- 
cients. 

During  the  early  stages  of  the  controversy  Sir 
Ralph  wrote  to  me  and  very  kindly  volunteered  to 
conduct  a  series  of  tests  I  had  suggested  if  I  would 
send  him  the  golf  balls,  which  I  very  gladly  did. 

Sir  Ealph  has  some  wonderful  catapults  con- 
structed on  the  same  lines  as  the  mischievous 
machines  that  formed  the  heavy  artillery  of  the 
Eomans.  With  one  of  these  he  could  hurl  a  twelve 
pound  stone  a  quarter  of  a  mile.  As  a  neighbor 
his  good- will  should,  I  think,  be  worth  cultivating. 

He  used  a  smaller  machine  for  the  experiments 
he  made  for  me.  His  results  were  extremely  in- 
teresting and  they  were  embodied  in  two  articles 
which  occupied  three  columns  of  The  Times.  I 
shall  give  as  fully  as  I  can  those  points  of  interest 
to  the  golfer  and  the  golf  ball  manufacturer,  in 
the  hope  that  the  latter  may  realize  quickly 
the  soundness  of  my  contention  and  banish  the 
pimple  or  bramble  marking. 

One  important  thing  that  Sir  Ealph  did  was  to 
show  that  the  center  of  gravity  is  wrong  in  a  great 
majority  of  balls.  I  suspect  that  it  must  be  very 
hard  to  get  a  rubber-core  with  its  " floating  center'7 
right  in  this  particular. 

Many  golfers  would  think  that  this  is  a  matter 
of  practically  no  importance.  Let  them  proceed 


THE  NEW  GOLF  245 

to  undeceive  themselves  by  making  a  small  hole 
in  the  case  of  a  ball,  inserting  a  buck  shot,  fixing 
it  there  with  soap  or  wax,  and  trying  to  put  with 
it.  Then  they  will  have  a  better  understanding 
of  what  center  of  gravity  means. 

I  may  say  that  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the 
peculiar  double  swerve  that  one  so  often  sees  at 
golf  is  the  result  of  defective  center  of  gravity. 
I  have  often  seen  well-hit  drives  by  famous  golfers 
swerve  to  the  right,  swing  back  again  to  the  line 
and  go  on  to  the  hole  without  deviation  from  the 
line. 

I  am  familiar  with  the  rare  phenomenon  of  dou- 
ble swerve  through  an  adventitious  change  of  the 
axis  of  rotation  during  flight.  This  practically 
never  occurs  in  golf  and  when  one  sees  it  in  any 
other  game  there  is  always  a  considerable  amount 
of  irregularity  about  it,  as,  indeed  one  might  ex- 
pect from  the  nature  of  its  production;  but  this 
sinuous  double  swerve  of  golf  is  so  regular  and 
so  consistent  in  its  manifestation,  when  it  does 
occur,  that  I  have  been  forced  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  is  a  matter  of  defective  center  of  gravity. 

A  manufacturer  will  not  supply  a  customer 
with  something  he  does  not  demand.  The  golfer 
is  a  good  natured  soul  who  takes  what  is  given  to 
him,  for  the  most  that  can  be  got  out  of  him,  and 
asks  no  questions.  When  he  cannot  play  he  says 


246  THE  NEW  GOLF 

nasty  things  about  himself,  which  generally  is 
right  and  also  a  proper  frame  of  mind;  but,  oh, 
happy  thought,  if  he  only  knew  it,  the  golf  ball  is 
not  doing  its  fair  share  as  often  as  it  ought  to. 
The  shape,  resiliency,  and  center  of  gravity  of  the 
golf  ball  are  matters  of  the  utmost  importance  to 
the  golfer,  yet  he  takes  all  these  for  granted  with 
a  confidence  that  is  quite  touching.  One  may  take 
fifty  golf  balls  and  test  them  for  shape,  resiliency, 
center  of  gravity  and  weight,  and  the  odds  are 
even  that  twenty-five  of  them  are  different  from 
the  other  twenty-five. 

It  is  easy  to  test  the  rubber-cored  balls  as  re- 
gards their  center  of  gravity.  Sir  Ealph  did  this 
by  placing  the  ball  he  desired  to  test  in  a  basin  of 
water  until  it  came  to  rest,  when  he  marked  the 
center  of  the  spot  that  was  protruding  with  a  pen- 
cil. He  found  that  this  spot  always  came  back  to 
the  same  place,  no  matter  how  the  ball  was 
dropped  into  the  water  or  rolled  about.  This 
showed  conclusively  that  the  center  of  gravity  was 
wrong. 

Sir  Ealph  found  that  the  guttie  ball,  as  was  to 
be  expected,  was  much  truer  as  regards  center  of 
gravity  than  the  rubber-cored  balls.  He  tried 
these  and  the  miniature  ball  that  would  not  float 
in  water,  in  a  solution  of  salt  and  water. 

His  experiments  were  really  most  exhaustive. 


THE  NEW  GOLF  247 

He  found  that  there  was  a  considerable  variation 
in  the  degree  of  error.  In  some  cases,  especially 
with  the  smaller  balls,  the  marked  spot  came  up 
in  two  seconds,  while  some  of  the  others  took  from 
four  to  six  seconds.  He  estimated  the  compara- 
tive error  in  these  balls  by  putting  the  marked 
spot  downwards  in  the  water  and  then  taking  the 
time  it  took  the  ball  to  return  to  its  original  posi- 
tion with  the  spot  in  the  center  of  the  exposed 
portion. 

The  catapult  that  Sir  Ealph  used  for  his  ex- 
periment with  regard  to  the  flight  of  the  ball  was 
a  small  model  of  the  formidable  machine  I  have 
already  referred  to.  It  will  pitch  a  golf  ball  from 
180  to  200  yards  away  according  to  the  amount  of 
tension  employed  and  the  elevation  given. 

The  power  of  the  engine  comes  from  twisted 
cord  and  the  arm  of  the  machine  is  two  feet  eight 
inches  long.  There  is  a  cup  at  its  upper  end 
which  holds  the  ball.  Sir  Ealph  can  throw  the 
balls  any  intermediate  distance  up  to  200  yards 
and  at  any  elevation  he  wants.  He  conducted  ex- 
periments with  balls  thrown  by  this  catapult  and 
also  with  balls  hit  away  by  it,  as  he  says,  in  a  man- 
ner similar  to  a  golf  club.  He  found  that  in  each 
case  he  got  unvarying  accuracy.  There  was  no 
slice,  pull  or  cut,  as  indeed  was  natural. 

Sir  Ealph  found  that  the  accuracy  of  flight  of 


248  THE  NEW  GOLF 

a  good  ball  was  very  remarkable.  He  pitched 
one  ball  twenty  times  so  that  it  landed  each  time 
within  a  few  feet  of  a  peg  put  in  at  180  yards  from 
the  machine. 

Sir  Ealph  found,  as  I  had  confidently  asserted 
would  be  the  case,  that  against  the  wind  the  balls 
with  the  roughest  markings  always  carried  the 
shortest  distance  and  that  they  tended  to  soar  a 
good  deal  in  their  flight.  This  generally  came  in 
after  they  had  gone  about  two-thirds  of  the  carry. 
It  is  apparent  from  this  I  think,  that  in  all  cases 
of  drives  with  backspin  the  excessive  markings 
would  be  detrimental  so  far  as  regards  distance. 

Sir  Ealph  found  that  in  this  matter  of  soaring 
there  was  a  distinct  difference  between  the  very 
rough  balls  and  those  that  were  a  little  less  so. 
He  proved  beyond  the  least  shadow  of  doubt  that 
on  account  of  reduced  friction  the  less  roughly 
marked  balls  carried  farther  than  those  which 
were  heavily  marked.  Naturally  the  flight  of 
these  balls  being  lower  they  had  on  this  account 
also  an  advantage. 

These  remarkable  experiments  showed  too  that 
in  a  cross  wind  unless  there  is  spin  on  a  golf  ball 
it  is  not  affected  nearly  so  much  as  most  people 
think.  It  was  found  that  in  a  fresh  side  wind 
from  the  left  all  the  balls  except  the  guttie,  at  a 
range  of  130  yards,  landed  8  to  12  yards  to  the 


THE  NEW  GOLF  249 

right  of  the  mark,  and  that  the  more  roughly 
marked  balls  consistently  showed  the  greatest 
deviation  from  the  line. 

In  this  experiment  Sir  Ralph  discovered  a  very 
remarkable  fact.  It  was  always  the  ball  with  the 
most  defective  center  of  gravity  that  made  the 
worst  deviation  and  it  always  ran  at  a  more  acute 
angle  off  the  line  of  flight  after  it  struck  the 
ground. 

We  thus  see  that  it  was  always  the  most  roughly 
marked  balls  that  suffered  most  from  the  action 
of  the  wind.  We  see  that  it  was  one  of  them, 
which  also  suffered  from  a  defective  center,  that 
was  carried  the  extreme  of  twelve  yards  off  the 
line.  We  may  thus  assume  that  in  this  distance 
this  would  probably  be  the  maximum  deviation  in 
a  wind  of  the  nature  described  by  Sir  Ralph  Payne- 
Gallwey. 

When  we  consider  this  result  we  can  see  the 
golfer  is  frequently  suffering  from  a  very  severe 
handicap  that  he  does  not  even  suspect,  when  he 
uses  a  ball  that  allows  the  wind  to  get  such  a  grip 
of  it  as  the  bramble  marked  ball  does,  and  which 
moreover  has  superimposed  upon  this  handicap 
a  defective  center,  which  carries  it  further  off  the 
line,  and  the  added  vice,  after  landing,  of  running 
away  at  a  sharp  angle  to  the  line  of  its  drift. 
What  a  virgin  field  is  here  for  him  who  would 


250  THE  NEW  GOLF 

clearly  explain  in  a  scientific  and  convincing  man- 
ner that  it  was  not  he  that  sliced  the  ball,  but — 
and  this  is  where  it  comes  in. 

I  sent  Sir  Ealph  Payne- Gallwey  some  samples 
of  the  almost  smooth  ball  that  I  have  referred  to 
on  account  of  its  extraordinary  flight.  I  called 
this  ball  "The  Buff"  to  distinguish  it  from  others. 

Sir  Ealph  says  of  it:  "This  ball  was  quite 
smooth,  as  smooth  indeed  as  a  billiard  ball.  I 
tried  this  smooth  ball  from  the  engine  and  it 
' ducked'  every  time  in  an  extraordinary  manner, 
its  length  of  carry  being  seldom  more  than  eighty 
yards." 

This  is  the  ball  the  interstices  of  which  had  been 
nearly  filled  up  with  paint.  It  was  nearly  as 
smooth  as  a  billiard  ball,  much  more  nearly  indeed 
than  had  been  intended. 

Sir  Ealph  thought  that  for  some  unexplained 
reason  the  form  of  this  ball  might  not  be  suitable 
for  discharge  by  a  projectile  engine,  so  he  carried 
his  experiments  further  still.  Let  me  quote  him. 

He  says:  "...  and  as  I  could  not  drive 
it  further  than  about  eighty  yards  with  a  golf 
club,  I  engaged  the  well-known  professional  Ed- 
ward Eay,  to  play  a  round  of  the  green  with  this 
ball  at  Ganton.  As  Eay  is  an  exceptionally  long 
and  accurate  player  with  driver  and  cleek  I  felt 
the  ball  would  have  a  fair  chance  of  going,  if  it 


THE  NEW  GOLF  251 

could  go.  From  the  first  tee  the  ball  did  not  carry 
a  hundred  yards,  though,  to  all  appearances, 
struck  clean  and  hard.  I  thought  that  for  once  in 
a  while  Bay  had  missed  his  drive,  but  as  the  same 
thing  occurred  from  every  tee  and  through  the 
green  for  the  next  six  holes,  there  was  no  dispu- 
ting that  a  smooth  ball  was  quite  useless  for  golf. 
I  then  proceeded  to  nick  the  ball  slightly  with  the 
point  of  a  knife,  spacing  the  small  raised  nicks 
about  one  third  of  an  inch  apart,  the  ball  being 
still  a  very  smooth  one  in  comparison  to  any  of 
the  usual  kinds.  After  this  slight  alteration  the 
ball  flew  splendidly,  whether  off  wood  or  iron 
clubs,  neither  too  high  nor  too  low,  but  quite 
straight,  and  with  the  very  slight  rise  towards  the 
end  of  its  carry  that  is  the  essence  of  perfect 
flight  in  a  golf  ball,  some  of  the  carries  when 
measured  from  the  tee  being  well  over  two  hun- 
dred yards/' 

This  surely  is  a  sufficient  vindication  of  the 
soundness  of  my  claim  for  less  marking. 

Sir  Ralph,  moreover,  says  that  on  his  return 
home  he  shot  this  ball  from  his  small  catapult  and 
that  it  then  several  times  out-distanced  the  best 
record  made  by  any  of  the  other  balls  he  had 
tested. 

He  was  not,  however,  satisfied  to  leave  it  at  that, 
but  proceeded  to  chip  up  many  more  nicks  on  the 


252  THE  NEW  GOLF 

same  ball.  He  found  that  this  reduced  the  flight 
of  the  ball  by  several  yards  and  also  caused  it  to 
soar  too  much  against  a  head-wind  as  is  the  case 
with  the  ordinary  rough-marked  golf  ball. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  Sir  Ealph  was  very 
thorough  in  his  tests.  In  summing  up  his  con- 
clusions he  says :  ' l  From  such  practical  tests  it  is 
evident  that  the  surface  of  the  golf  ball  is  far  too 
rough,  and  that  it  would  fly  with  more  accuracy 
and  farther,  especially  with  a  head  or  a  side  wind, 
had  it  much  less  numerous  and  prominent  mark- 
ings on  its  cover. ' ' 

This  is  exactly  what  I  contended  in  my  original 
article.  It  is  what  I  still  say.  It  is  what  the 
makers  of  golf  balls  must  realize  if  they  want  to 
improve  the  flight  and  run  of  the  ball.  Their 
work  is  too  coarse.  They  will  not  see  that.  Golf 
is  a  game  of  infinite  delicacy.  It  cannot  be  played 
coarsely.  I  do  not  believe  that  a  really  coarse 
man  could  play  it  very  well.  Near  the  hole  it  is  a 
particularly  delicate  matter.  We  all  know  that 
except  the  ball  makers. 

Sir  Ealph  has  some  most  interesting  things  to 
tell  us  about  the  experiments  he  made  in  driving 
with  his  machine. 

He  says :  l '  This  striking  arm  hit  the  ball  away 
just  as  it  is  hit  by  a  golf  club.  The  ball  I  sus- 
pended by  gossamer  silk  from  the  projecting 


THE  NEW  GOLF  253 

beam  of  a  little  gallows  fixed  over  the  engine,  and 
so  positioned  that  the  enlarged  upper  end  of  the 
arm  struck  the  ball  fair  and  true  and  with  its  full 
force  and  at  the  same  angle  every  time." 

I  was  not  present  at  these  experiments.  Sir 
Kalph  was,  however,  good  enough  to  send  me  a 
copy  of  his  book  The  Projectile  Throwing  Engines 
of  the  Ancients.  I  find  it  hard  to  follow  him 
when  he  says,  * l  This  striking  arm  hit  the  ball  away 
just  as  it  is  hit  by  a  golf  club,"  for  the  catapult 
was  hitting  the  ball  from  below  it  while  the  golf 
club  hits  it  from  above.  The  arcs  are  entirely 
dissimilar.  We  know,  however,  that  the  balls 
were  all  struck  in  a  similar  manner  and,  where 
comparisons  as  to  carry  were  to  be  made,  with 
similar  force. 

Continuing  his  remarks  about  driving,  he  says : 
"Another  curious  thing;  the  ball  with  the  most 
untrue  center  of  gravity  usually  made  one,  and 
occasionally  even  two,  swerves  in  the  air  when  hit 
against  the  wind,  though  this  eccentricity  in  its 
line  of  flight  was  less  noticeable  when  it  was 
thrown  from  the  engine." 

I  had  forgotten  that  Sir  Balph's  experiments 
had  in  some  degree  confirmed  my  idea  about  the 
double  swerve  of  the  golf  ball  being  due  to  de- 
fective center  of  gravity.  Here,  however,  he  sets 
us  a  new  puzzle.  It  may  be  that  the  center  being 


254  THE  NEW  GOLF 

off  the  line  and  the  main  spring  of  the  ball  being 
around  the  center  that  the  coefficient  of  restitu- 
tion, as  I  think  it  is  called,  is  strongest  off  the 
center  and  thus  gives  that  side  of  the  ball  on  which 
the  core  is  situated  a  tendency  to  get  away  from 
the  club  first,  soon  to  be  corrected  as  the  weightier 
side  lagged,  swung  back  and  round  to  the  other 
side  and  then  repeated  the  performance  for  the 
return  swerve.  That  is  the  only  idea  I  can  ad- 
vance for  this  double  swerve.  I  dealt  with  the 
subject  of  double  swerve  generally  many  years 
ago  in  The  Field,  London. 

Sir  Ealph  Payne  Gallwey  was  occupied  for  sev- 
eral days  in  these  experiments.  He  fired  fully 
five  hundred  shots  and  then  he  went  inside  and 
continued  his  experiments  in  order  to  arrive  at  a 
just  comparison  between  the  merits  of  these  balls 
on  the  putting  green. 

It  is  not  necessary  just  because  this  is  a  table 
d'hote  dinner  to  take  every  course.  Those  who 
are  not  interested  in  this  matter  need  not  follow 
me  here,  but  Sir  Ealph 's  experiments  as  regards 
the  run  of  the  ball  are  so  remarkable  and  so  im- 
portant that  I  have  decided  to  put  them  on  record 
in  America  so  that  they  may  do  their  share  in 
affecting  the  new  thought  in  golf  and  things  ap- 
pertaining to  golf. 

He  says:  "I  obtained  a  piece  of  lead  three- 


THE  NEW  GOLF  255 

quarters  of  an  inch  thick,  two  inches  wide,  and 
three  feet  long,  in  which  I  cut  a  straight  and 
smooth  groove  one  inch  wide.  One  end  of  this 
piece  of  lead  I  rested  on  the  cushion  at  the  baulk 
end  of  a  billiard  table,  and  directed  its  other  end 
towards  the  spot  on  which  the  red  ball  is  placed 
in  the  game  of  billiards. ' 9  Sir  Ralph  speaks  here, 
of  course,  of  English  billiards.  This  spot  is  in 
the  middle  of  the  table  about  nine  inches  from  the 
top  cushion.  The  length  of  the  table  is  twelve 
feet  and  its  breadth  six  feet.  "The  forward  end 
of  the  grooved  lead  I  tapered  off  so  that  a  ball  ran 
evenly  and  smoothly  from  the  groove  onto  the 
table  without  any  drop  or  deviation  as  it  left  the 
piece  of  lead,  which,  from  its  weight,  when  once 
set,  could  not  change  its  position.  I  now  placed 
a  thimble  on  the  spot  at  the  far  end  of  the  table 
and  rolled  an  accurately  turned  wooden  ball  the 
same  size  as  a  golf  ball  down  the  sloping  groove. 
After  a  little  adjustment  of  the  lead  piece  its  line 
of  fire  was  correct,  and  I  was  able  to  knock  the 
thimble  off  the  spot  fifty  times  in  succession.  The 
ball  traveled  with  sufficient  speed  just  to  reach 
the  cushion  beyond  the  thimble  when  the  latter 
was  moved  aside,  and  the  shot  at  the  thimble  nicely 
represented  a  slow  put  of  eight  feet  in  length. ' ' 

Sir  Ealph  found  on  testing  the  different  golf 
balls  that  he  got  widely  different  results.    He  took 


256  THE  NEW  GOLF 

each  ball  and  tried  it  twenty  times  at  the  thimble 
with  the  result  that  they  seldom  hit  it  more  than 
three  or  four  times  in  a  series.  Some  of  them 
rolled  off  as  much  as  two  feet  to  the  right  or  left 
while  those  which  had  been  proved  guilty  of  a  de- 
fective center  of  gravity  occasionally  rolled  away 
into  the  corner  pocket,  a  little  matter  of  three  feet 
off  the  line  in  eight  feet.  It  sounds  almost  in- 
credible but  it  is  perfectly  true.  I  had  tried  the 
same  thing  in  a  slightly  different  way  myself. 
This  is  what  the  unfortunate  golfer  often  has 
"going  against  him"  on  the  green. 

Sir  Ealph  emphasizes  a  point  that  I  often  make 
namely,  that  the  inaccuracy  of  the  bramble  ball  is 
overlooked  because  in  approach  puts  the  force  of 
the  blow  holds  it  up  against  its  own  tendency  to 
wabble.  He  says:  "Any  of  the  balls  if  played 
fairly  hard  from  a  cue  could  be  made  to  strike  the 
thimble  every  time,  but  then  such  a  hard-hit  ball 
would  go  far  beyond  the  hole  in  golf,  and  probably 
overrun  the  putting  green.  The  smooth  billiard 
tablecloth  may  be  taken  to  represent  the  hard, 
bare  and  fast  putting  green  of  a  dry  summer. ' ' 

Sir  Ealph  was  most  thorough  in  his  experi- 
ments. He  covered  the  table  with  a  strip  of  rough 
green  baize  and  tried  the  balls  again.  He  then 
found  that  the  balls  ran  with  much  greater  accu- 
racy, except  those  that  were  defective  as  to  center 


Brown  Bros.,  A.  Y. 

FRANCIS  OUIMET 
Finish  of  Drive 


THE  NEW  GOLF  257 

of  gravity,  and  that  they  now  hit  the  thimble  eight 
or  ten  times  in  a  series  of  twenty  tries. 

I  think  we  may  take  it  for  granted  that  this  se- 
ries of  experiments  proved,  that  especially  on  a 
hard  fast  green,  and  particularly  for  puts  that 
have  not  much  force  behind  them  the  bramble  or 
pimple  marking,  or  indeed  any  marking  by  ex- 
crescence is  most  treacherous. 

Sir  Balph's  advice  to  the  golfer  about  a  golf 
ball  is :  '  '  Select  a  ball  with  as  smooth  a  cover  as 
you  can  find,  for  though  all  golf  balls  require  to 
be  roughened  in  order  to  steady  their  flight,  those 
most  deeply  scored  travel  the  shortest  distance, 
and  are  most  affected  by  a  head  or  side  wind. ' ' 

If  the  great  controversy  about  the  marking  of 
the  golf  ball  had  had  no  other  effect  than  this  truly 
remarkable  series  of  experiments  by  a  man  who 
is  famous  as  a  shot  and  an  author,  and  who  is 
moreover  a  practical  golfer,  it  would  still  have 
served  golf. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE   FLIGHT   OP  THE   GOLF   BALL 

THE  flight  of  the  golf  ball  has  occupied  the  atten- 
tion of  some  very  eminent  men.  Golf  was  not  so 
popular  in  Newton's  time  as  it  is  now.  If  it  had 
been  we  should  no  doubt  have  had  the  benefit  of 
his  knowledge  in  connection  with  various  matters 
appertaining  thereto. 

Newton  is  more  celebrated  for  what  he  is  sup- 
posed to  have  discovered  through  the  flight  of  the 
apple.  He  was  not,  however,  above  turning  his 
mind  to  matters  of  less  moment  than  the  law  of 
gravitation;  and  over  two  hundred  years  ago, 
in  most  learned  and  weighty  language,  he  laid 
down  the  principles  governing  the  swerve  of  a 
tennis  ball. 

Incidentally  I  may  remark  that  when  I  applied 
the  same  principles  to  cricket  and  explained  the 
swerve  of  the  ball  in  England  to  English  cricketers 
in  my  book  Swerve,  or  the  Flight  of  the  Ball,  a 
famous  English  cricketer,  famous,  I  may  say, 
more  for  his  physical  than  his  intellectual  "wal- 
lop," declared  that  what  I  said  was  not  to  be  taken 

258 


THE  NEW  GOLF  259 

seriously.  Poor  Newton!  I  did  not  give  him 
away,  and  now  in  The  Times  Library,  London, 
that  book  of  mine  may  be  found  catalogued  as  a 
work  on  applied  mathematics,  and  I  do  not  believe 
that  I  could  do  a  simple  equation  without  assist- 
ance. 

I  forget  how  I  got  my  " greatness. "  I  wasn't 
born  with  it,  and  it  certainly  was  not  thrust  upon 
me.  I  am  certain  Newton  helped  me ;  but  I  have 
never  confessed  it  until  this  time,  and  I  wouldn't 
do  it  now  in  England.  If  this  book  gets  into  the 
hands  of  the  English  press  I  am  undone,  and  New- 
ton will  come  into  his  own ! 

We  have,  however,  in  the  records  of  golf  writ- 
ing some  remarkable  contributions  by  learned  men. 

One  of  the  first  was  by  Professor  Tait,  father 
of  the  famous  Freddie  Tait,  who  was  afterwards 
killed  in  the  Boer  War,  a  fine  golfer,  and  by  all 
accounts  a  fine  fellow,  as  are  so  many,  who  belong 
to  the  grand  guild  of  the  club  that  it  makes  the 
writing  of  golf  books  more  a  matter  of  pleasant 
club  conversation  than  severe  literary  parturition. 

Professor  Tait  published  an  article  in  The  Bad- 
minton Magazine  of  March,  1896,  entitled  "Long 
Driving. "  Professor  Tait  really  was  a  very 
learned  man  and  he  became  most  interested  in 
golf,  and  indeed  was  himself  by  no  means  a  poor 
player. 


26o  THE  NEW  GOLF 

He  worked  it  out  by  mathematics  that  it  was 
beyond  human  capacity  to  drive  a  golf  ball  more 
than  a  certain  number  of  feet  and  inches,  which  he 
duly  set  down,  and  next  day  his  famous  son,  some- 
what undutifully,  so  the  story  runs,  knocked  his 
father's  calculations  sky  high  by  driving  a  golf 
ball  much  farther  than  the  mathematical  limit. 

Here  was  a  pretty  to  do.  The  situation  had  to 
be  faced  somehow.  Professor  Tait  again  bent  his 
mind  to  the  question  and  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  there  must  be  some  force  in  the  golf  drive 
which  he  had  overlooked.  It  did  not  take  him 
long  to  decide  that  it  was  backspin. 

He  went  into  the  matter  fully  and  wrote  his 
article  for  The  Badminton  Magazine  and  it  has 
been  quoted  reverently  ever  since  by  any  one  who 
ever  wrote  anything  about  golf  except  me,  and 
the  only  thing  they  didn't  say  to  me  because  I  did 
not  reverence  it  was  De  mortuis  nisi  nil  bonum; 
and  I  fully  expected  that. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  Professor  Tait's  article  is 
founded  on  a  fundamental  error  to  which  I  have 
before  referred,  namely  that  the  beneficial  back- 
spin  of  golf  is  obtained  from  the  loft  of  the  club. 
It  is  an  error  that  is  by  no  means  uncommon  and 
he  has  been  followed  in  it  of  recent  years  by  a 
physicist  of  even  greater  renown,  Professor  Sir 
J.  J.  Thomson,  M.A.,  L.L.D.,  D.S.C.,  F.E.S., 


THE  NEW  GOLF  261 

M.E.I.,  O.M. ;  Cavendish  Professor  of  Experi- 
mental Physics,  Cambridge ;  Professor  of  Physics, 
Eoyal  Institution,  London;  Professor  of  Natural 
Philosophy,  Koyal  Institution,  and  winner  of  the 
Nobel  Prize  for  physics,  1906. 

The  title  of  his  paper  was  The  Dynamics  of  a 
Golf  Ball,  and  it  was  read  before  The  Eoyal  In- 
stitution of  Great  Britain.  We  may  see  that 
neither  the  institution  under  whose  auspices  the 
lecture  was  delivered  nor  the  lecturer  was  incon- 
siderable. In  fact  so  much  importance  was  at- 
tached to  it  that  I  am  wondering  if  by  any  chance 
I  can  get  recommended  for  the  next  Nobel  Prize 
for  physics  for  showing  clearly,  as  indeed  I  have 
already  done,  that  Professor  Tait  and  more  re- 
cently Professor  Thomson,  who  indeed  followed 
Professor  Tait's  lead  very  closely,  were  quite 
wrong  in  their  deductions. 

Professor  Tait  said:  "The  most  cursory  obser- 
vation shows  that  a  ball  is  hardly  ever  sent  on  its 
course  without  some  spin,  so  that  we  may  take 
the  fact  for  granted,  even  if  we  cannot  fully  ex- 
plain the  mode  of  its  production.  And  the  main 
object  of  this  article  is  to  show  that  long  carry 
essentially  involves  underspin." 

There  are  two  important  mistakes  here.  It 
wants  much  more  than  "The  most  cursory  obser- 
vation "  to  show  that  "a  ball  is  hardly  ever  sent 


262  THE  NEW  GOLF 

on  its  course  without  some  spin."  Nobody  has 
ever  yet  established  that  fact,  and  it  is  undoubted 
that  the  vast  majority  of  golf  balls  that  are  driven 
by  good  players  have  no  spin — particularly  back- 
spin — that  appreciably  affects  their  flight,  that 
they  are  to  all  intents  and  purposes  cleanly  hit 
balls,  with  generally  an  uppish  tendency  in  the 
stroke  which  kills  all  backspin. 

Professor  Tait  continues:  "To  find  that  his 
magnificent  carry  was  due  to  what  is  virtually  a 
toeing  operation — performed  no  doubt  in  a  verti- 
cal and  not  in  a  horizontal  plane,  is  too  much  for 
the  self-exalting  golfer ! ' ' 

And  so  indeed  it  should  be,  for  nothing  is  fur- 
ther from  the  truth. 

Professor  Tait,  however,  continues:  "The  fact 
however,  is  indisputable.  When  we  fasten  one 
end  of  a  long  untwisted  tape  to  the  ball  and  the 
other  to  the  ground  and  induce  a  good  player  to 
drive  the  ball  (perpendicularly  to  the  tape)  into  a 
stiff  clay  face  a  yard  or  two  off,  we  find  that  the 
tape  is  always  twisted  in  such  a  way  as  to  show 
underspin;  no  doubt  to  different  amounts  by 
different  players,  but  proving  that  the  ball  makes 
usually  from  about  one  to  three  turns  in  six  feet, 
say  from  forty  to  a  hundred  and  twenty  turns  per 
second,  this  is  clearly  a  circumstance  not  to  be 
overlooked." 


THE  NEW  GOLF  263 

This  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  instances  in 
the  history  of  science  of  the  investigator  finding 
the  thing  he  was  looking  for  instead  of  starting 
out  to  ascertain  the  truth.  In  fact,  he  went  so 
far  as  to  make  his  friends  produce  the  results  he 
wanted,  but  of  course  innocently,  and  equally  in- 
nocently Professor  Sir  J.  J.  Thomson  followed 
him  and  fell  into  the  trap. 

It  is  in  a  footnote  to  his  lecture  that  Professor 
Tait  gives  the  whole  thing  away.  He  says  calmly 
and  unsuspectingly:  "In  my  laboratory  experi- 
ments, players  could  not  be  expected  to  do  full 
justice  to  their  powers.  They  had  to  strike  as 
nearly  as  possible  in  the  center,  a  ten  inch  disc  of 
clay,  the  ball  being  teed  about  six  feet  in  front  of 
it.  Besides  this  preoccupation,  there  was  always 
more  or  less  concern  about  the  possible  conse- 
quence of  rebound,  should  the  small  target  be  alto- 
gether missed." 

Aiming  for  the  center  of  a  ten  inch  disc  of  clay 
six  feet  away  from  the  tee  would  give  us  a  ball 
five  inches  from  the  earth  six  feet  from  the  tee ! 

What  kind  of  a  stroke  would  produce  such  a 
shot!  Obviously  only  the  downward  blow  and 
the  low  follow-through  that  produce  backspin. 
We  can  see  clearly  that  Professor  Tait  arbitrarily 
settled  the  trajectory  of  the  ball.  He  made  the 
golfer  play  the  ball  he  was  looking  for. 


264  THE  NEW  GOLF 

Instead  of  a  ten  inch  disc  of  clay  he  should  have 
had  a  clay  bank  or  have  had  half  the  side  of  his 
wall  covered  with  clay  and  have  allowed  the  golf- 
ers to  play  their  own  natural  strokes.  Then  he 
would  have  found  something  entirely  different. 
Where  he  made  his  error  was  in  compelling  his 
assistants  to  aim  at  a  target  so  low  as  five  inches 
at  six  feet  from  the  tee.  He  left  them  no  chance 
to  do  anything  but  play  the  low  drive. 

Assuming  that  the  tee  was  half  an  inch  high 
and  allowing  that  the  ball  hit  the  very  center  of  the 
target  it  would  not  have  risen  more  than  four 
inches  in  six  feet.  I  think  that  we  should  expect 
to  find  some  backspin  in  such  a  drive ! 

Professor  Thomson  started  his  lecture  by  say- 
ing: "This  problem  is  in  any  case  a  very  inter- 
esting one,  which  would  be  even  more  interesting 
if  we  could  accept  the  explanations  of  the  behavior 
of  the  ball  given  by  some  contributors  to  the  very 
voluminous  literature  which  has  collected  around 
the  game.  If  this  were  correct,  I  should  have  to 
bring  before  you  this  evening  a  new  dynamics  and 
announce  that  matter  when  made  up  into  golf 
balls  obeys  laws  of  an  entirely  different  character 
from  those  governing  its  action  when  in  any  other 
condition. ' ' 

Notwithstanding  this  somewhat  pompous  start 
Professor  Thomson  proceeded  to  explain  most  of 


THE  NEW  GOLF  265 

the  "problem"  on  exactly  the  lines  that  Newton 
and  I — or  should  I  say  I  and  Newton — had  done 
some  few  years  ago — to  be  more  precise,  Newton 
about  250  years  and  I,  on  the  result  of  his  know- 
ledge, about  seven  years  ago. 

Whenever  Professor  Thomson  was  correct  he 
explained  everything  exactly  as  I  have  laid  it 
down  in  that  work  on  "applied  mathematics, ' ' 
Swerve,  or  the  Flight  of  the  Ball;  and  when  he 
was  not  in  accord  with  that  he  was  wrong,  and 
hopelessly  wrong,  too,  both  theoretically  and 
practically. 

If  this  were  a  matter  of  splitting  atoms,  sub- 
dividing elektrons,  or  discovering  new  gases  I 
should  not  dare  to  raise  my  voice  against  Pro- 
fessor Thomson ;  but  I  happen  to  know  something 
about  this  subject.  I  believe  the  Arab  proverb 
says,  "He  is  a  wise  man  who  knows  that  he  knows. 
Follow  him."  The  proverb  does  not  give  any 
short  method  of  finding  out  whether  or  not  "he" 
knows,  so  in  this  case  if  my  readers  want  to  be 
"in  at  the  death,"  they  must  follow  me  and 
chance  it. 

Professor  Thomson  says:  "...  a  golf  ball, 
when  it  leaves  the  club,  is  only  in  rare  cases 
devoid  of  spin,  and  it  is  spin  which  gives  the  in- 
terest, variety,  and  vivacity  to  the  flight  of  the 
ball ;  it  is  spin  which  accounts  for  the  behavior  of 


266  THE  NEW  GOLF 

a  sliced  or  pulled  ball;  it  is  spin  which  makes  the 
ball  soar  or  'douk,'  or  execute  those  wild  flour- 
ishes which  give  the  impression  that  the  ball  is 
endowed  with  an  artistic  temperament  and  per- 
forms these  eccentricities,  as  an  acrobat  might 
throw  in  an  extra  somersault  or  two  for  the  fun  of 
the  thing.  This  view,  however,  gives  an  entirely 
wrong  impression  of  the  temperament  of  a  golf 
ball,  which  is,  in  reality,  the  most  prosaic  of 
things,  knowing  while  in  the  air  only  one  rule  of 
conduct  which  it  obeys  with  an  intelligent  con- 
scientiousness, that  of  always  following  its  nose. 
This  rule  is  the  only  key  to  the  behavior  of  all  balls 
when  in  the  air ;  whether  they  are  golf  balls,  base- 
balls, cricket  balls  or  tennis  balls. " 

Any  ordinary  unscientific  person  may  well  be 
pardoned  for  asking  what  is  a  ball's  nose.  If  it 
were  a  bramble  marked  ball  one  might  pick  out 
an  extra  large  excrescence  and  so  name  it  but 
Professor  Thomson  does  not  mean  anything  so 
scientific  as  this.  His  idea  of  what  constitutes  the 
ball's  "nose"  is  shown  by  the  following  quotation: 
"Let  us,  before  entering  into  the  reasons  for  this 
rule,  trace  out  some  of  its  consequences.  By  the 
nose  of  the  ball  we  mean  the  point  on  the  ball 
furthest  in  front." 

Professor  Thomson  does  not  even  state  here 
whether  he  means  farthest  in  front  in  the  line  of 


THE  NEW  GOLF  267 

flight  or  in  the  line  to  the  hole.  It  is  obvious  that 
in  the  cases  of  a  straight  hit  to  the  hole  and  a 
pulled  drive  the  spot  on  each  ball  representing 
the  nose  would  be  in  a  different  place. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  Professor  Thom- 
son means,  although  he  does  not  say  so,  ' l  the  point 
on  the  ball  furthest  in  front "  in  the  line  of  its 
flight. 

This  puts  his  explanation  of  swerve  out  of  court 
at  once.  I  know  an  English  amateur  who  can  pull 
a  ball  so  that  it  will  sail  away  out  over  the  rough 
for  thirty  or  forty  yards  and  then  swing  in  again 
to  the  middle  of  the  course.  Let  us  apply  Pro- 
fessor Thomson's  rule  to  this  ball.  If  it  always 
"followed  its  nose"  it  would  never  come  back  on 
to  the  fairway.  It  comes  back  because  its  nose  is 
pushed  round. 

The  trouble  is  that  Professor  Thomson  wants 
to  have  the  "nose"  of  the  ball  both  a  fixed  and  a 
moving  point;  but  he  cannot  have  it  both  ways. 
If  the  "nose"  is  a  fixed  point  in  front  of  the  ball 
without  spin  the  ball  will  always,  with  but  slight 
variation,  go  straight  after  that  "nose"  without 
any  swerve  whatever.  If  the  nose  is  meant  to 
exist  in  a  spinning  ball  it  is  obvious  that  there  is 
not  one  but  millions  of  noses.  It  is  a  new  nose 
every  time  the  revolving  ball  makes  a  movement 
of  the  decillionth  of  an  inch — more  or  less. 


268  THE  NEW  GOLF 

The  truth  is  that  Professor  Thomson's  explana- 
tion tends  at  the  outset  to  confuse.  The  swerve 
of  the  ball  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the 
turning  of  the  "nose,"  or  the  millions  of  noses  in 
any  particular  direction  apart  from  the  extra  local 
friction  set  up,  as  already  explained,  on  one  part 
of  the  ball. 

Professor  Thomson  makes  it  very  clear  that  he 
is  not  well  acquainted  with  the  various  methods 
of  applying  spin  to  balls  in  sport.  He  says:  "A 
lawn  tennis  player  avails  himself  of  the  effect  of 
spin  when  he  puts  *  top-spin'  on  his  drives,  i.e.  hits 
the  ball  on  the  top,  so  as  to  make  it  spin  about  a 
horizontal  axis,  the  nose  of  the  ball  traveling 
downwards  .  .  .  ;  this  makes  the  ball  fall  more 
quickly  than  it  otherwise  would,  and  thus  tends 
to  prevent  it  going  out  of  court. " 

I  have  played  tennis — we  do  not  now  call  it  lawn 
tennis — for  more  than  twenty  years.  I  am  the 
author  of  four  books  on  the  game,  one  of  which  is 
translated  into  French  and  German,  published  also 
in  America,  and  is  recognized  both  in  England  and 
America  as  the  standard  work  on  the  game,  and  I 
can  assure  Professor  Thomson  that  no  tennis 
player  ever  dreams  of  trying  to  get  top-spin  on 
his  ball  by  hitting  it  on  top.  The  only  result  would 
be  to  "founder"  the  ball,  to  drive  it  onto  the 


HARRY  VARDON 
Finish  of  Drive 


THE  NEW  GOLF  269 

ground  before  it  could  even  touch  the  net,  let 
alone  get  over  it  and  into  the  opposite  court. 

Sometimes  when  the  bound  is  very  high  and 
very  near  the  net  one  may  hit  the  ball  a  little 
above  the  middle  of  its  height;  to  use  Professor 
Thomson's  term,  a  little  above  its  "nose"  as  seen 
from  the  opposing  player 's  court,  but  even  in  such 
rare  cases  as  these  there  is  no  attempt  to  hit  the 
ball  on  "top."  This  is  theory  of  the  most  un- 
sound nature.  Top-spin  in  tennis  is  obtained  by 
hitting  the  ball  generally  speaking  with  a  racket 
whose  face  is  practically  vertical  and  ascending  in 
an  oblique  line  across  the  intended  line  of  flight 
of  the  ball,  to  put  it  very  simply  one  "brushes" 
the  racket  up  behind  and  against  the  ball  thus 
gripping  it  and  making  it  spring  away  with  a  lot 
of  forward  roll  that  is  commonly  called  top  or  top- 
spin. 

Professor  Thomson  indeed  shows  by  diagram 
how  this  top-spin  affects  the  ball,  but  even  here 
he  is  in  error.  He  shows  the  ball  beginning  to  dip 
directly  it  is  hit.  It  really  goes  quite  a  long  way 
in  nearly  every  case  before  the  spin  gets  to  work. 
Probably,  almost  certainly,  on  account  of  the  great 
adhesion  between  the  ball  and  the  tennis  racket, 
the  ball  rises  after  impact.  It  is  in  fact  a  cer- 
tainty that  most  balls  hit  with  top-spin  do  so  rise 


270  THE  NEW  GOLF 

for  a  majority  of  them  are  hit  below  the  height  of 
the  net. 

Professor  Tait  makes  this  error  in  his  article 
Long  Driving,  and  it  is  quite  clear  to  me  that  Pro- 
fessor Thomson  is  following  him  very  closely  in 
his  statements. 

Here  is  a  statement  by  Professor  Thomson 
about  the  soundness  of  which  many  of  my  readers 
will  be  better  able  to  judge  than  I  am:  " Excellent 
examples  of  the  effect  of  spin  on  the  flight  of  a  ball 
in  the  air  are  afforded  in  the  game  of  base-ball. 
An  expert  pitcher,  by  putting  on  the  proper  spin, 
can  make  the  ball  curve  either  to  the  right  or  the 
left,  upwards  or  downwards;  for  the  sideway 
curves  the  spin  must  be  about  a  vertical  axis ;  for 
the  upward  or  downward  ones,  about  a  horizontal 
axis. ' ' 

I  speak  here,  subject  to  correction,  but  I  should 
imagine  that  all  good  pitchers  tilt  the  axis  of  spin 
out  of  the  vertical  and  so  get  gravitation  in  as  an 
ally  instead  of  fighting  it  by  keeping  the  plane  of 
spin  horizontal.  We  get  much  greater  swerve  in 
the  American  service  at  tennis,  where  the  axis  of 
spin  is  tilted  over,  than  we  do  in  services  where 
we  keep  the  axis  of  spin  nearly  vertical. 

Professor  Thomson  says:  "If  a  ball  were  spin- 
ning about  an  axis  along  the  line  of  flight,  the  axis 
of  spin  would  pass  through  the  nose  of  the  ball, 


THE  NEW  GOLF  271 

and  the  spin  would  not  affect  the  motion  of  the 
nose ;  the  ball,  following  its  nose,  would  thus  move 
on  without  deviation/' 

The  spin  which  Professor  Thomson  is  here  de- 
scribing is  that  which  a  rifle  bullet  has  during  its 
flight  for  it  is  obvious  that  a  rifle  bullet  is  spinning 
" about  an  axis  along  the  line  of  flight"  and  that 
the  axis  of  spin  does  pass  through  the  nose  of  the 
bullet.  We  know,  however,  that  in  the  case  of  the 
rifle  bullet  there  is  a  considerable  amount  of  de- 
viation, which  is  called  "drift,"  and  not  swerve. 
This  has  never  been  very  clearly  explained 
although  some  most  learned  treatises  have  been 
written  about  it. 

It  is,  of  course,  an  impossibility  to  communi- 
cate this  spin  to  a  golf  ball  by  means  of  a  golf 
club,  but  reasoning  from  the  analogy  of  the  rifle 
bullet  I  cannot  see  that  Professor  Thomson  is  safe 
in  so  dogmatically  asserting  that  there  would  be 
no  deviation.  In  fact,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
if  tempted  I  might  show  that  a  golf  ball  with  a 
similar  spin  to  the  rifle  bullet  would  deviate  from 
its  course. 

I  have  just  said  that  it  is  impossible  to  produce 
this  spin  with  a  golf  club.  The  question  naturally 
arises  how  could  one  make  the  test.  I  believe  it 
could  be  done  with  a  straight  hit  ball  provided  the 
ball  was  grooved  in  curves  of  such  a  nature  that 


272  THE  NEW  GOLF 

the  wind  would  be  almost  sure  to  engage  them  and 
so  turn  the  ball  until  it  acquired  a  certain  amount 
of  spin. 

I  saw  a  sample  of  such  a  ball  some  time  ago.  It 
had  four  to  six  poles  and  the  lines  were  all  in 
curves  flowing  one  way.  The  idea  was  ingenious 
but  the  resulting  patterns  would  not  be  popular 
with  golfers;  and  while  the  ball  might  hold  its 
flight  well,  in  plain  hit  balls  it  would  not,  I  think, 
have  any  advantage  in  the  important  class  of  balls 
hit  with  backspin,  for  it  would  naturally  have  a 
constant  tendency  to  fight  across  the  plane  of  spin 
of  the  backspin. 

Professor  Thomson  performed  some  most  elab- 
orate experiments  to  prove  the  truth  of  those 
things  which  Newton  explained  about  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ago  and  which  were  recognized  as 
fundamental  truths  until  I  was  rash  enough  to 
use  them  in  London,  when  they  were  called  my 
"theories."  They  never  really  understood  how 
complimentary  they  were. 

It  is  strange  that  although  Newton  thoroughly 
understood  the  theory  of  swerve  he  was  in  the 
same  error  as  that  of  Professors  Tait  and  Thom- 
son, namely  that  it  was  the  "oblique  racket,"  in 
other  words  the  "loft"  that  was  producing  the 
spin.  He  said,  writing  to  Oldenburg  in  1671, 
about  the  Dispersion  of  Light,  "I  remembered 


THE  NEW  GOLF  273 

that  I  had  often  seen  a  tennis  ball  struck  with  an 
oblique  racket  describe  such  a  curved  line." 

It  is  not  so  much  striking  anything  with  an 
11  oblique "  instrument  that  produces  spin,  al- 
though in  certain  cases  that  will,  of  course,  assist, 
as  it  is  the  striking  of  the  oblique  blow.  Even 
with  such  a  heavily  lofted  club  as  the  niblick  one 
will  never  get  much  backspin  unless  one  plays  the 
stroke  designed  to  produce  it. 

It  is  when  we  get  to  slicing  and  pulling,  how- 
ever, that  Professor  Thomson  gets  quite  out  of  his 
depth.  At  page  12  of  his  remarkable  paper  he 
says:  "So  far  I  have  been  considering  under- 
spin.  Let  us  now  illustrate  slicing  and  pulling; 
in  these  cases  the  ball  is  spinning  about  a  vertical 
axis." 

This  statement  is  very  definite  and  quite  wrong. 
I  have  already  dealt  very  fully  with  the  flight  and 
run  of  the  slice  and  the  pull  in  the  chapters  de- 
voted to  those  strokes.  I  have  practically  nothing 
to  add  to  these  except  to  say  that  any  one  who  has 
had  even  a  very  brief  experience  of  golf  will  know 
the  different  characteristics  of  the  flight  and  run 
of  the  pull  as  set  out  by  me.  They  will  not  re- 
quire any  argument  to  convince  them  that  these 
entirely  dissimilar  effects  are  not  produced  by 
the  same  axis  of  rotation. 

Professor  Thomson  performed  some  most  in- 


274  THE  NEW  GOLF 

genious  experiments  to  demonstrate  the  correct- 
ness of  his  theories  ahout  the  slice  and  the  pull. 
He  had  an  electro-magnet  and  a  red  hot  piece  of 
platinum  with  a  spot  of  barium  oxide  on  it.  *  '  The 
platinum  is  connected  with  an  electric  battery 
which  causes  negatively  electrified  particles  to  fly 
off  the  barium  and  travel  down  the  glass  tube  in 
which  the  platinum  strip  is  contained;  nearly  all 
the  air  has  been  exhausted  from  this  tube.  These 
particles  are  luminous,  so  that  the  path  they  take 
is  very  easily  observed. " 

These  particles,  I  may  say,  take  in  Professor 
Thomson's  mind  the  place  of  golf  balls,  and,  by 
means  of  his  electro-magnet  he  proceeds  to  show 
us  exactly  what  golf  balls  when  pulled  or  sliced 
do,  but  unfortunately  for  him  Professor  Thomson 
is  wrong  in  his  theory  and  he  is  starting  out  to 
make  his  " particles"  do  what  he  wants  them  to 
do,  which  in  this  case,  is  something  that  neither  a 
pulled  nor  a  sliced  ball  ever  does. 

At  the  beginning  of  Professor  Thomson's  paper 
he  says:  "I  shall  not  attempt  to  deal  with  the 
many  important  questions  which  arise  when  we 
consider  the  impact  of  the  club,  but  confine  myself 
to  the  consideration  of  the  flight  of  the  ball  after 
it  has  left  the  club." 

If  Professor  Thomson  had  kept  to  this  line  of 
action  it  would  have  prevented  him  from  making 


THE  NEW  GOLF  275 

a  very  amusing  error.  He  says:  "I  have  not 
time  for  more  than  a  few  words,  as  to  how  the  ball 
acquires  the  spin  from  the  club,  but  if  you  grasp 
the  principle  that  the  action  between  the  club  and 
the  ball  depends  only  on  their  relative  motion, 
and  that  it  is  the  same  whether  we  have  the  ball 
fixed  and  move  the  club  against  it,  or  have  the  club 
fixed  and  project  the  ball  against  it,  the  main 
features  are  very  easily  understood." 

I  am  afraid  that  not  many  of  my  readers  will 
be  able  to  "  grasp  the  principle "  here  set  out. 
There  is  herein  no  reflection  on  their  mental  ca- 
pacity, but  it  seems  to  me  that  there  is  a  very 
striking  difference  in  the  two  propositions  so  hur- 
riedly set  forth  by  Professor  Thomson.  If  we 
have  the  club  fixed  and  project  the  ball  against  it 
we  know  that  the  ball  will  rebound  from  the  club, 
but  if  we  have  the  ball  fixed  and  move  the  club 
against  it,  nothing  that  bears  any  colorable  imi- 
tation of  golf  takes  place,  unless  we  move  the  club 
fast  enough  when  we  should  simply  smash  it — 
and  at  least  set  up  some  similarity  to  the  real 
game. 

This  really  is  extreme  looseness  of  expression 
for  so  weighty  a  matter !  I  know  quite  well  what 
Professor  Thomson  means  to  say,  but  I  have  not 
to  deal  with  that,  and  even  what  he  means  to  say 
is  wrong.  In  the  meantime  I  have  only  to  con- 


276  THE  NEW  GOLF 

sider  "a  new  dynamics "  of  how  to  drive  the  fixed 
ball! 

I  must  pass  over  a  good  deal  that  Professor 
Thomson  has  to  say  and  come  to  the  rock  on 
which  Professor  Tait  and,  following  him,  Pro- 
fessor Thomson  have  split.  Professor  Thomson 
says :  '  '  Suppose  Fig.  27  represents  the  section  of 
the  head  of  a  lofted  club  moving  horizontally  for- 
ward from  right  to  left,  the  effect  of  the  impact 
will  be  the  same  as  if  the  club  were  at  rest  and 
the  ball  were  shot  against  it  horizontally  from 
left  to  right.  Evidently,  however,  in  this  case  the 
ball  would  tend  to  roll  up  the  face,  and  would  thus 
get  spin  about  a  horizontal  axis  in  the  direction 
shown  in  the  figure;  this  is  under-spin  and  pro- 
duces the  upward  force  which  tends  to  increase 
the  carry  of  the  ball.'' 

This  really  is  an  amazing  error  for  a  famous 
physicist  to  make  nowadays.  Let  us  consider  that 
the  club  he  is  speaking  of  is  a  driver.  I  have  no 
hesitation  in  saying  that  the  loft  of  a  driver  is 
practically  innocent  of  having  anything  to  do  with 
producing  backspin.  The  function  of  that  loft  is 
to  lift  the  ball.  The  beneficial  backspin  of  golf  is 
always  obtained  by  a  downward  glancing  blow, 
and  moreover  by  a  blow  that  is  moving  in  an  arc 
and  not  in  a  straight  line,  although,  of  course, 


THE  NEW  GOLF  277 

when  the  blow  is  delivered  the  force  is  applied  in 
one  direction. 

Professor  Thomson  errs  grievously  in  showing 
the  stroke  proceeding  in  a  straight  line.  This 
rarely  if  ever  happens  in  golf.  The  stroke  is 
upward  or  downward,  far  more  often  upward  than 
downward;  for  scarcely  any  one  properly  trusts 
the  loft  of  the  club  to  do  its  part,  a  want  of  confi- 
dence in  the  club,  I  may  repeat,  that  is  wholly  un- 
deserved. This  upward  hit  kills  on  the  instant 
any  approach  to  backspin  the  club  might  other- 
wise communicate  to  the  ball  for  it  tends  to  put 
the  loft  of  the  face  at  a  right  angle  to  the  initial 
line  of  flight  of  the  ball,  thus  destroying  any  ob- 
liquity in  the  impact.  Even  Professor  Tait  recog- 
nized this  important  point  although  he  did  not 
see  the  application  of  it  as  against  his  arguments. 

Loft  is  not  necessary  for  backspin.  One  could 
drive  a  ball  with  a  club  having  a  vertical  face  and 
obtain  much  backspin  and  a  good  carry,  provided 
the  tee  were  high  enough  to  allow  the  cut  down 
across  the  ball,  and  it  would  have  to  be  a  really 
high  tee. 

Although  the  blow  that  produces  backspin  is  a 
descending  blow  there  is  of  course  much  more  for- 
ward motion  than  downward  at  and  about  the  mo- 
ment of  impact  so  that  all  the  ordinary  principles 


278  THE  NEW  GOLF 

of  the  golf  stroke  are  in  the  blow.  The  loft  must 
get  its  chance  to  act  as  in  any  other  stroke,  but 
there  must  be  no  notion  of  leaving  the  loft  to  play 
the  stroke  for  one  unless  one  wants  to  be  griev- 
ously disappointed. 

I  must  return  for  a  moment  to  one  of  Profes- 
sor Thomson's  statements  that  seems  to  me  to  be 
very  interesting  and  to  require  some  analysis: 
".  .  .  but  if  you  grasp  the  principle  that  the  ac- 
tion between  the  club  and  the  ball  depends  only  on 
their  relative  motion,  and  that  it  is  the  same 
whether  we  have  the  ball  fixed  and  move  the  club 
or  have  the  club  fixed  and  project  the  ball  against 
it,  the  main  features  are  very  easily  understood. ' ' 

I  am  now  going  to  deal  with  what  Professor 
Thomson  meant  to  say.  For  this  purpose  let  us 
take  the  case  of  an  ordinary  slice.  We  all  know 
that  a  slice  is  produced  by  a  glancing  blow  com- 
ing inwardly  across  the  intended  line  of  flight  and 
Professor  Thomson  tells  us  that  it  is  exactly  the 
same  whether  we  hit  the  ball  with  the  club  or  fire 
the  ball  against  the  club.  We  must  analyze  this  a 
little  and  see  what  results  we  get  on  paper  before 
worrying  about  it  any  further. 

Let  us  consider  that  we  have  played  a  perfectly 
good  slice  and  that  we  did  it  by  coming  across 
the  line  at  an  angle  of  35  degrees.  Let  us  bolt 
our  club  down  on  the  line  quite  rigidly  at  a  right 


THE  NEW  GOLF  279 

angle  to  it,  as  it  was  when  we  got  our  slice.  Let 
us  now  fire  our  ball  at  the  club  down  a  line  at 
an  angle  of  35  degrees  to  the  face  of  the  club. 

Now  most  of  us  know  enough  elementary  me- 
chanics to  know  that  in  hitting  a  still  object  such 
as  the  face  of  a  club,  the  ball  will  come  off  it  at 
the  same  angle  at  which  it  hit  it,  that  is  to  say 
that  the  angle  of  reflection  will  be  the  same  as 
the  angle  of  incidence,  making  a  trifling  allowance 
for  the  loft  of  the  club.  Here  we  have  one  object 
that  is  held  absolutely  still  and  all  the  motion  is 
confined  to  the  ball. 

Now  we  must  consider  the  other  proposition, 
the  case  in  which  the  club  strikes  the  ball.  The 
ball  flattens  onto  the  face  of  the  club  to  a  consider- 
able extent  and  while  it  is  thus  in  adhesion  the 
two  travel  together  for  a  short  distance.  This 
slice  is  being  played,  remember,  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  the  first  stroke.  While  the  ball  and  the 
club  are  adhering  they  travel  together  across  the 
line  from  where  the  ball  lay  to  the  hole.  In  effect 
the  club  picks  the  ball  up  and  carries  it  a  little 
way  inwards  towards  the  player's  side  of  the  line 
of  flight  before  the  ball  leaves  the  club.  At  the 
moment  of  impact  there  is  no  angular  spread  of  the 
ball  in  any  way.  The  same  argument  applies  with 
possibly  less  force  in  the  case  of  the  ordinary  drive 
where  the  point  at  issue  is  the  "  spread, "  or  angle, 


28o  THE  NEW  GOLF 

of  the  ball  after  impact  in  a  vertical  plane  instead 
of,  as  in  the  case  we  are  considering,  one  that  is 
almost  horizontal. 

The  analysis  that  I  have  given  of  Professor  Sir 
J.  J.  Thomson's  famous  lecture  will  show  that 
this  subject  of  the  dynamics  of  the  golf  ball  is  not 
so  simple  that  it  may  be  dealt  with  successfully 
unless  one,  in  addition  to  some  knowledge  of 
physics,  also  understands  thoroughly  the  produc- 
tion of  the  various  golf  strokes. 

In  connection  with  the  flight  of  the  golf  ball  I 
am  often  asked  to  explain  why  the  modern  rubber- 
cored  ball  swerves  so  much  more  than  the  old 
gutta  percha  ball.  This  is  supposed  to  be  some- 
thing in  the  nature  of  a  puzzle  but  I  believe  the 
answer  is  simple.  The  modern  ball  on  account  of 
its  greater  resilience  stays  longer  on  the  face  of 
the  club,  although  Mr.  W.  J.  Travis,  in  Practical 
Golf  says  otherwise.  It  therefore  has  more  time 
to  be  affected  by  the  oblique  nature  of  the  stroke, 
and  thus  almost  certainly  has  more  spin  than  the 
old  guttie  had  at  the  moment  of  leaving  the  ball. 
Every  one  knows  that  the  swerve  comes  in  mainly 
at  the  end  of  the  flight  of  the  ball.  As  the  spin 
gets  to  work  at  approximately  the  same  distance 
as  it  did  with  the  guttie  and  the  ball,  from  that 
point  to  the  end  of  its  carry,  has  a  longer  distance 
to  travel  the  spin  has  a  greater  time  within  which 


THE  NEW  GOLF  281 

to  work  its  will  on  the  ball.  If  we  add  to  this 
Sir  Ealph  Payne-Gallwey's  discovery  about  the 
defective  center  of  gravity  so  prevalent  in  the 
modern  ball  and  his  experiments  proving  how  it 
assists  drift  it  is  easy  to  see  that  there  is  quite 
enough  to  account  for  the  apparently  greater 
amount  of  swerve.  In  the  main  however  it  is  a 
question  of  the  longer  carry  giving  the  greater 
spin  more  time  to  act. 

Before  closing  this  chapter  I  should  like  to  sug- 
gest an  experiment  to  any  one  who  thinks  that  the 
beneficial  backspin  of  golf  is  obtained  by  the  loft 
of  the  driver  as  stated  by  Professor  Thomson. 

Prepare  a  block  of  wood  or  get  a  wall  or  other 
place  fixed  up  so  that  it  has  the  same  angle  as 
the  loft.  Against  this  fire  a  ball  with  a  catapult 
or  other  instrument  until  you  have  ascertained  the 
angle  of  rebound  caused  by  the  loft.  Then  at  a 
yard  or  so,  according  to  the  force  of  rebound  fix 
another  piece  of  wood.  Draw  a  mark  round  a 
golf  ball  so  that  it  is  a  circle  cutting  both  poles  of 
the  ball.  Place  the  ball  in  the  machine  so  that  the 
circle  is  in  the  plane  of  its  flight.  Mark  the  top 
pole  with  a  blue  dot.  Color  the  wall  you  are  firing 
against  red,  or  some  color  that  will  mark  the  ball. 
Deal  similarly,  but  in  a  different  color  with  the 
board  that  is  to  catch  the  rebound  of  the  ball. 
Fire  many  balls  at  the  first  board  and  compare 


282  THE  NEW  GOLF 

the  distance  on  them  between  the  mark  left  by  the 
first  board  and  that  of  the  second.  It  seems  to 
me  that  if  this  experiment  were  properly  carried 
out  one  could  accurately  measure  the  amount  of 
backspin  produced  by  the  loft  alone  in  driving.  It 
would  be  found  to  be  very  small.  An  arrow 
should  be  put  on  the  circle  round  the  ball  showing 
the  direction  of  the  backspin,  and  care  would  have 
to  be  taken  to  fire  the  ball  in  such  a  manner  that 
the  arrow  was  correctly  pointed.  It  seems  to  me 
that  an  absolutely  correct  measurement  could  be 
taken  in  this  manner. 


AFTEEWOED 

AND  now,  those  who  have  followed  me  so  far, 
will  see  that  "The  New  Golf"  is  not  so  much  "new 
golf"  as  it  is  old  golf  newly  interpreted.  It  is 
in  effect,  golf  as  it  has  been  played  since  golf  was 
golfr  but  shorn  of  the  cobwebs  of  tradition  with 
which  the  game  has  been  festooned  by  writers,  even 
as  though  they  were  linked  in  a  gigantic  conspi- 
racy to  put  mystery  and  confusion  where  sim- 
plicity and  clarity  should  be. 

Something  more  there  is,  it  is  true,  in t '  The  New 
Golf"  than  this.  There  are  some  modern  de- 
velopments of  the  game,  there  is  one  new  stroke, 
there  is  the  trend  of  the  modern  game  clearly  to 
be  seen,  there  is,  mayhap,  some  fresh  thought,  but 
in  the  main,  "The  New  Golf"  is  just  the  grand, 
simple  old  game,  taught  in  a  sane  and  lucid  man- 
ner, so  that  any  one  who  turns  to  it  for  assistance 
may  get  it,  and  not  be  bewildered,  as  so  often  hap- 
pens when  one  turns  for  help  to  a  book  on  golf. 


283 


INDEX 


Accuracy,  mechanical,  supreme 
demand  of  golf,  169 

Accuracy,  reasons  for  its  neces- 
sity, 169 

Address,  the  frontal,  13 

Address,  98 

Adhesion,   165 

Arm  roll,  125 

Arms  in  upward  swing,  123 

"As  you  go  up,  so  you  come 
down,"  18 

Backspin,  154 

Badminton  Magazine,  The,  259, 
260 

Balls,  defective  center  of  grav- 
ity in,  246 

Ball,  impression  of,  on  club, 
166 

Ball,  John,  grip  of,  9 

Ball,  John,  220 

Ball,  Vaile,  241 

Ball-shy  golfers,  2 

Ball,  the  golf,  232 

Baltusrol,  37,  38 

Baseball  curves,  Professor 
Thomson  on,  270 

Blindfold  driving,  193 

Billiard  cue,  223 

Braid,  James,  ball  to  be 
"swept,"  21 

Braid,  James,  on  follow 
through,  26 

Braid,  James,  grip  of,  7 


Braid,  James,  and  Vaile  putter, 
35,  36 

Center  of  gravity  defective  in 

balls,  246 

Centrifugal  force,  101 
Cleek,  the,  91 
Clubs,  illegal  golf,  225 
Club,  the  golf,  223 
Club,  grip  of,  6 
Club,  grip  of,  in  America,  7 
Clubs,  mallet-headed,  226 
Club,  soling  the,  6 
Concentration  necessary,  85 
Consciousness,  self,  100 
Cricket  bat,  223 
Cross  wind,  effect  of,  248 
Cut  and  slice  similar,  149 


Daily  Mail,  The,  71 
Demand  of  golf  mechanical  ac- 
curacy, 169 

Divots  not  necessary,  82 
Double  swerv*,  245,  253 
Downward  swing,  start  of  the, 

16,  127 

Drag  in  putting,  42 
Drift  of  rifle  bullet,  271 
Drive  an  exaggerated  put,  5 
Driving,  97 
Drive,    duration    of   impact   in 

the,  21 

Duncan,  George,  grip  of,  7 
285 


286 


INDEX 


Duncan,  George,  56 

Duncan,   George,   and  form   of 

mashie,  68 
Duncan's  hip  action,  133 

Elbow,  right,  126 
Eyes,  the,  191 

Field,  The,  254 
Flight,  low,  of  push,  155 
Flight  of  the  golf  ball,  258 
Follow  through,  the,  25 
Follow  through,  James  Braid's 

views,  26 
Follow     through,    Vardon    on, 

135  et.  seq. 
Foot,  the  left,  106 
Foot  work,  27 
Foot  work,  excessive,  28 
Foot  work,  proper,  96 

Golf  clubs,  form  and  make  of, 
228 

Golf  Magazine,  The,  39 

Golf,  right  way  to  learn,  1 

Golf  stroke  a  hit,  20 

Golf  stroke  a  hit,  except  per- 
haps put,  22 

Golf  stroke,  prevalent  miscon- 
ceptions about,  14 

Golf  stroke,  speed  of,  134 

Golfer,  The  Complete,  44 

Gravity,  defective  center  of 
ball's,  246 

Grip,  interlocking,  6 

Grip,  the  Vardon,  6 

Grip  must  be  maintained 
throughout  stroke,  124 

Head,  the,  138 
Head  must  be  kept  still,  191 
Head,  fault  of  rigid,  amongst 
American  players,  195 


Head,   Vardon  on   lifting  the, 

194 

Heel,  left,  in  drive,  27 
Heel  twisting,  99 
Hilton,  H.  H.,  grip  of,  9 
Hip  action,  Vardon's,  107 
Hip  action,  and  right  leg,  132 
Hockey  stick,  224 
How  to  Play  Golf,  by  Braid,  46 
Hutchinson,  Horace,  on  power 

of  left,  213 
Hutchinson,  Horace,  on  weight 

at  top  of  swing,  116 


Idea,  clear,  necessary  for  suc- 
cess of  stroke,  63 

Impact,  Braid  on,  136 

Impact,  duration  of,  in  drive, 
21 

Impact  in  cut  put,  Vardon  on, 
65 

Impact  in  golf  stroke,  Travis, 
W.  J.,  on  duration  of,  280 

Impact,  James  Braid's  views 
on,  23 

Impact,  James  Braid  on,  24 

Impact,  regulation  of  stroke 
during,  22 

Impact,  statement  about  Var- 
don and  pull,  24 

Impact,  the,  135 

Impact,  Vardon  on,  135 

Iron,  the,  83 

Iron  shot,  Vardon  on  the,  85 

Iron  swing,  Vardon  on  gravity 
in,  87 


La-crosse,  223 

Lament    of   Left   Hand,    215 
Left  arm  and  hand,  power  of, 
29 


INDEX 


287 


Left   arm,    Braid,    Taylor    and 

Vardon    on    power    of,    30 
Left  foot,  106 
Left  knee  bends  towards  ball, 

108 

Left  hand's  lament,  215 
Left  leg,  weight  mainly  on,  at 

top  of  swing,  20 
Leg,  the  left,  110 
Left,  the  power  of  the,  204 
Left,    Horace    Hutchinson    on 

power  of,  213 
Leg,  the  right,  111 
Light,  dispersion  of,  272 
Loft,  slight,  on  putter  desirable, 

41 
Loin  work,  Vardon's,  107 

Mallet  resolution,  225 
Mallet-headed  clubs,  226 
Mashie,  the,  67 
Mashie,  cut  shots  with,  68 
Mashie,  cut  shots  and  Taylor, 

148 
Mashie,  form  of,  and  Duncan, 

68 
Mashie,  soft  metal  for  face  of, 

69 
Mid  Surrey,  36 

Newton,  on  swerve,  168 
Newton,  265,   272 
Nga  Motu  Golf  Club,  230 
Niblick,  the,  142 
Nobel  Prize,  261 

Oldenburg,  272 
Ouimet,  Mr.,  39 
Overlapping  grip,  6 
Overlapping  grip,  new,  8 

Payne-Gallwey,       Sir      Ralph, 
243 


Pivoting  on  toe,  99 

Power  of  the  left  arm  and 
hand,  29 

Practise,  secret  of  putting,  49 

Press  forward,  the,  18 

Pressure,  varying,  in  grip, 
Braid  on,  208 

Projectile  Throwing  Engines  of 
the  Ancients,  The,  244 

Pull  and  George  Duncan,  179 

Pull,  Braid's  idea  of  impact  in, 
186 

Pull,  controversy  over,  178 

Pull,  reverse,  174 

Pull,  run  of,  189 

Pull,  spin  in,  and  run  of,  187 

Pull,  stance  and  address  for, 
177 

Pull,  Taylor  on,  148 

Pull,  the,  176 

Pull,  the  spin  of  the,  and  top- 
spin,  184 

Pull,  turn  over  of  wrist  in,  185 

Push  shot,  150 

Put  a  pure  wrist  stroke,  Var- 
don, 63 

Put,  the  best,  59 

Put,  the  ideal,  33 

Puts,  complicated,  59 

Puts,  hitting,  56 

Putter,  the  Vaile,  36 

Putters,  loft  on,  40 

Putters,  shallow-faced,  35 

Putting,  32 

Putting,  backspin  in,  40 

Putting,  Braid  on  improving 
one's,  52 

Putting,  individuality  in,  50 

Putting,  James  Braid's,  35,  36, 
37 

Putting,  position  of  eyes  in,  35, 
57 

Putting,  position  of  feet  in,  58 


288 


INDEX 


Putting,  use  only  center  of  club, 

60 

Putting,  Vardon's,  37 
Putting,  Vardon  on,  62 
Putting,  Vardon  on  low  follow 

through,  64 

Putting,  variety  of  style  in,  34 
Putting  with  cut,  65 
Putting  with  top,  43 

Ray,  Edward,  and  "The  Ruff" 
ball,  250 

Rifle  bullet,  drift  of,  271 

Right  hand  easing  grip  in 
swing,  8 

Right  leg  and  hip  action,  132 

Roll  of  the  arms,  125 

Royal  and  Ancient  Golf  Club 
of  St.  Andrews,  225 

Royal  Institute  of  Great  Brit- 
ain, 235 

Rubber-cored  ball,  swerve  of, 
280 

"Ruff,  The,"  ball,  250 

Schenectady  putter,  224 
Sherlock  and  weight  at  top  of 

swing,  93 
Sherlock,  James,  and  weight  on 

machine,  121 
Sherlock,  James,  on  "mystery" 

of  golf,  51 
Short    swing,    198 
Slice  and  cut  similar,  149 
Slice,  characteristics  of,   174 
Slice,  run  of,  173 
Slice,    stance    for,    165 
Slice,    Taylor   on,    148 
Slice,  the,  164 
Slicing,  how  to  cure  it,  170 
Slow  back,  15 
Smooth     ball     and     Professor 

Thomson,  236 


Smooth  ball,  reasons  for  er- 
ratic flight  of,  236 

Soling,  correct,  12 

Soling,  faulty,  11 

Speed  of  golf  stroke,  134 

Spin  and  pace,  172 

Stance  and  address,  98 

Stance,  open,  98 

Stance,  square,  98 

Standard,  The  Evening,  216, 
233,  235 

Style,  5 

Stymie  mashie  and  smooth 
face,  68 

Stymie  stroke,  essentials  of 
new,  70 

Stymie  stroke,  new,  and  George 
Duncan,  70 

Sweep,  golf  stroke  not  a,  20 

Swerve,  double,  245,  253 

Swerve  of  slice,  168 

Swerve  or  the  Flight  of  the 
Ball,  265 

Swing,  tension  at  top  of,  210 

Swing,  the  short,  198 

Swing,  top  of,  17,  20 

Swinging  back,  17 

Tait,  Freddie,  259 

Tait,  Professor,  259 

Taylor,  J.  H.,  grip  of,  7 

Taylor  on  putting,  46  et.  seq. 

Tee,  high,  for  low  ball,  155 

Tennis  racket,  223 

Tension  at  top  of  stroke,  131 

Tension  at  top  of  swing,  210 

The  master  stroke,  147 

Thomson,  Professor  Sir  J.  J., 
235,  260 

Thomson,  Professor,  on  top- 
spin,  268 

Top  in  putting,  43 

Topspin  in  tennis,  184,  268 


INDEX 


289 


Topspin  useless  in  golf,  188 
Travers,   Jerome    D.,   and  new 

stymie  stroke,  75 
Travis,   W.   J.,   on   impact,   23 
Truth,  215 

Vaile  ball,  241 

Vaile  putter,  225 

Vardon  and  the  master  stroke, 

150 
Vardon,  argument  how  he  plays 

pull,  24 

Vardon  grip,  defect  of,  8 
Vardon's  hip  action,  132 
Vardon  on  cut  put,  65 
Vardon   on   put   being   a   pure 

wrist  stroke,  63 

Waggle,  the,  102 
Waggle,  Duncan's,  104 
Walton-on-Heath,  36 
Weighing      machine      test      of 
weight  at  top  of  swing,  92 


Weight    across     left    foot    in 

swing,  108 
Weight   at   top    of   the   swing, 

20,   112 

Weight,  distribution  of,  19 
Weight,  excess  of,  on  left,  20 
Weight  in  drive  goes  forward, 

120 

Weight  mainly  on  left  leg,  20 
Weight  on  left  in  cleek  shot, 

92 
West  End  School  of  Golf  and 

weight  demonstration,  121 
Wind,  cross,  effect  of,  248 
Wrist  action,  125 
Wrists,  30 

Wrists  in  stroke,  Braid  on,  130 
Wrists   in   stroke,   Vardon   on, 

130 

Wrists,  Taylor  on,  211 
Wrists  underneath  shaft  at  top 

of  stroke,  125 
Wrists,  where  they  come  in,  129 


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